


A Strange Collection

by FauxPause



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Altean Lance (Voltron), Alternate Universe - Bleach Fusion, Bleach References, Blow Jobs, Choking, Choking is actually super dangerous, Creative sex, Creative sexual positions, Dom/sub, Dom/sub Undertones, Don't Try This At Home, Enthusiastic Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Fic Dump, Grizzled Older Keith is Still Keith, Hung Lance, Insecure Lance (Voltron), It Was a Small Hut, Kosmo the Wonder Wolf, Lance has Body Image Issues, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Not all smut, One Shot Collection, Past Allura/Lance (Voltron), Quincy!Lance, Some of the oneshots will be connected, Substitute Shinigami!Keith, Time Travel, Under-negotiated Kink, bottom!Keith, consent is important, consent is sexy y'all, inexperienced keith, klance, obligatory vampire fic wip, pls remember Keith is some sort of magical protagonist halfling and not a real boy, some won't, top!lance, we're getting all the flavors of Klance in here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 09:50:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16784575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FauxPause/pseuds/FauxPause
Summary: Fic dump all centering on Laith/Klance - some may branch into full stories.





	1. okay this one is abo

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo… what would you guys say if I told you I wrote about 10,000 words of random filthy Klance instead of finishing any of the new chapters? Because that’s… that’s what I did.

Lance presented Alpha long before making fighter pilot.

Long before he roomed with Hunk and before the mission to Kerberos was even discussed.

It started with a fever in the night. One that sent his thirteen year old roommate scrambling for help as the thermometer from another home beeped near a devastating 106 F. 

The inexplicable smell of smoke created confused and panicked accounts of a student’s brain cooking in the night. Complaints from up and down the hall about fire and panic and weak knees and headaches spring up mere minutes after the boy’s spooked arrival, his fists bruising under the force of the panicked knocking he made on the closest officer’s door.

Lance, thirteen and small for his age and a fighter-class hopeful, spends a week living in a quarantined medical bay.

Alphas and Omegas, they claimed over and over, were extinct. They were gone. There were maybe a couple hundred left in the world, the last war helpfully draining them from civilized society.

Lance spends a week living in a quarantined medical bay surrounded by faceless adults in hazmat suits. A week, poked and prodded and allowed only short video calls with his family as they signed waiver after waiver and downloaded the sparse and scattered literature on how to deal with what Lance was turning into. The stigma of Alphas long overshadowing what little research persisted. 

It was days before the outdated designation was even mentioned near the confused child.

Lance hears every word. He understands little.

Omega were revered as beautiful, sensitive, but delicate. Manipulative. Conniving and weak-hearted. Supposedly loyal, but ultimately self-serving. They’re an old, outdated, standard of beauty that persists subconsciously even now. Remnants of them adjusted but no less prolific in marketing. 

Alphas were shown as muscular, ridiculously tall, misshapen caricatures of what might have been conventionally attractive on anything else. They were cruel, bullies, dull, good for war and hard labor and nothing as intricate or advance as modern society. A brutish bygone of a better forgotten era.

Someone brings the word up, says _alpha_ into the hush of machines and violent flinching of professionals, and Lance can feel the tears well behind his eyes.

_Alphas_.

At best, they’re the cartoon caveman in Saturday comics that can’t think their way out of paper bags. 

At worst… at worst they’re monsters. Murderers, rapists, no more than beasts who can’t think further than their genitals. There’s a reason, they tell the wide-eyed children, that A’s and O’s went extinct.

And now Lance is turning into one. 

The first care package from home smells more like magic than laundry detergent. Lance closed his eyes and did his best to ignore the tapping that followed his every action, tried to imagine he was in his room at home far far away from the styluses and pads and cameras. Each inhale helped him piece the fantasy together; Marco, Luis, Veronica, Rachel, Lisa. It was almost like they were there with him. Slowly, the fever fades.

The smell of smoke lingers in the ward for months.

He’s told, in no uncertain terms, that he will be watched. His former roommate has moved out. The boy, who once traded notes and care-package sweets and comic books, who ran to get help doesn’t ever speak to him again.

When brown eyes meet blue in the hallways or across the cafeteria they’re only held in a squinting, narrow-eyed glare. As though the other were afraid to blink.

After the third smug smirk sent at his averted gaze, Lance set his jaw and stared James down until the boy pulled away and ducked his head. The rush of victory that flushes through Lance swiftly sinks like a stone in his stomach as he realizes what that body language could mean. He makes sure it never happens again (and does his best not to miss the interaction, the rush of a challenge made and met and _won_ ).

He finds himself glaring at the dark haired boy next to James instead. The one who no one else talks to either. 

But for all that he sucks at people, Kogane is _amazing_ in the simulator. Glaring at him, even if he _is_ jealous and upset that other never seems to even _notice_ , just doesn’t feel right.

Besides, despite what everyone’s started saying, he isn’t _stupid_ . Kogane lives with Captain Shirogane and Professor Wright. Picking a fight with him would be a one way ticket home. (He watches anyway, from across the room where his minders won’t worry about him getting too near their golden boy, wishing that Kogane would just _turn around and notice him_. That doesn’t happen either.) 

So Lance is alone, in the beginning. No roommate. No friends. Even his bi-weekly visits to the medical bay are made forcibly impersonal. Hazard suits and filtration masks on without fail as they draw blood and spike his hormonal levels, twist him up and up and up inside, before dropping them hard enough that he wonders why they’re even bothering with the extra pills. He takes them anyway. 

He calls home more and more frequently. Starts to take dinner back to his room so he can at least pretend to eat with someone, even if it’s just his abuela over a video call. His sisters send him pill caddies and shower caddies. Facemasks and loofahs and sugar scrubs for everything from his lips to his soles. They play silly songs and make up rhymes and color coordinate his things by day and type and chemical compatibility. Lance grows used to mixing his medicine into the products his sisters send him from around the world (he doesn’t tell the Garrison - they don’t really listen to him now at those check-ups anyways). 

He doesn’t make it into Fighter class at the end of term.

They put him in Cargo and everything falls apart again. 

They assign him a new roommate, a nervous mechanic ( _beta - normal, like everyone else)_ who’s spooked two people into falling out already. Or so the rumors go.  
  
(People still talk _to_ Lance, even if sometimes it’s more like yelling. Even if sometimes the laughter isn’t so much _with_ him anymore as much as it is _at_ him. It’s okay, though. He gets it. He’d rather laugh than be scared too - even if his nose tells him that none of the people laughing are actually _happy about it_.) 

It’s hard, at first. They’re both awkward. Both, Lance slowly puts together over the silence filled meals and nights, afraid of the other. It’s easier once he realizes that Tsuyoshi, by some grace or twist of fate, has no idea _what_ he is. That the other boy is actually afraid of _everything_ , nearly as much as Lance is afraid of himself. He wonders why Hunk, who flushes and smiles and smells a little like fresh baked bread rolls when Lance gives him the nick-name, even joined the Garrison in the first place. He _does_ know this is a _space_ program, right? Being afraid of everything from the Zero-G machine to the dark isn’t really the best start to what remains one of the most dangerous careers around. 

But Lance finds, little by little, bit by bit, that he can calm the bigger boy. A nudge here, a joke there. If he steels his spine and pulls Hunk in, sometimes he can practically see the worry evaporate off his friend _._ Eventually, it’s almost like he can _smell_ when Hunk’s anxiety starts to spike. Eventually, Lance hardly has to do more than just _be there_ to settle Hunk’s mind. It’s not much, but it's something. Something _good_ . Something he can _do_ , help this anxious, brilliant, kid center himself and just be. He tries not to think about the _how_ any more than he does the tingling rush that starts up each time Hunk acquiesces to his crazier schemes or carefully delicate demands. 

The beauty products keep coming and eventually an entire routine forms from them. Partially to cover up the minutes in the morning needed to apply the demanded blockers and suppressants and partially because, well, Lance _likes_ his face. Likes how he’s starting to look. Lisa says its important that he takes care of his skin. Rachel always moans about how pretty he looks after they wash their faces together. Three years later and the truth and the lie stretched into each other until both routines were indistinguishable from the other. If Hunk wondered at his need to smell overwhelmingly of coconut, vanilla, or whatever the strongest most appealing scent was on sale that week then he asked it sparingly and only after Lance paraded himself out of the shared bathroom, steam leaking artificially-sweet scent even a dulled beta’s nose could pick up.

So Lance was a flirt. Lance was a student. Lance was something of a joke, but he was a _harmless_ joke.

No one looked at him and thought _monster_ . Thought _dangerous_ , thought _tranq him again_ or _make sure to write that down_ . No one glanced twice at the twiggy loud mouth with low self-esteem and a beauty routine and thought _alpha_.

Then he made fighter pilot.

Then Keith Kogane crashed back into his life.

Then they were in space, in the middle of an ancient, senseless, war and Lance completely forgot to worry about his secret, the weight of it inconsequential in the face of indisputable galactic genocide.

Then he woke one morning not to the sound of the castle’s alarm shrieking madly but to the roiling scent of smoke.

He bathed until his skin rubbed raw. Hid the abrasions under layers of the heaviest scented creams he could find in the small provided bathroom. Scrubbed his face, his neck, his hands until they shone.

Strode half dressed and full of faked confidence onto the bridge and prayed that no one noticed anything past his, heh, smoke screen, of hygiene and attitude.

It worked.

Almost a little too well.

But that was for the best. There were no other alternatives and he was, Lance knew, running out of time. He’d never had a rut. He’d been on suppressants and blockers his entire life.

He didn’t know what he’d become without them.

Luckily, or rather, obviously, Lance knew the combination of hormones and chemicals used in his blockers.

He had to, it was required by law that he be able to recite the formula to suppress his rut and pheromone production in case of an emergency (or any situation in which someone might feel threatened by him, however ridiculous that continued to feel to the 5’8” 150 lb teenager). It wasn’t hard to convince Coran help him synthesize something similar enough. It was surprisingly easy, really… but Alteans didn’t have secondaries either and Coran had gone quiet when he’d brought it up. Altean cosmetics and some of the weirdest scented blockers he’d ever seen before had done the rest.

It worked.

Or… it had, until the castle blew up.

He’d rationed his remaining stock sparingly. Glad beyond reason that he’d made sure to keep extra on his person after that terrifying first day in the castle ship realizing his medication was tucked away in his shower caddies on Earth.

But it was never going to be enough. He just had to make it to Earth. That was all…

And if his temper seemed to fray or his attention wavered, well, things were tense.

It was the end of the world, after all.

They were all allowed a little leeway.

* * *

Lance has been off since they destroyed the castle.

He was weird before, sure, had been weird even back at the Garrison. (Who needed to bathe that frequently?) But this was different. He’d been snappish and quiet in weird turns. Avoiding them and then lashing out for attention when they all least expected it. He’d been so solid, recently. She’d hardly even recognized him after Shiro’s gone missing and, despite his frankly weird ups and downs, an emotional rock for more than just Allura in the wake of Lotor’s betrayal. But when they’d been floating in space, wrung out and desperate and in _need_ of that weird brand of calm command he’d started pulling out of nowhere, Lance’d nearly cut Keith to ribbons with his tongue for no discernable reason. 

Lance has been off and Pidge has been meaning to do something about it. Confront him, maybe. Say something for sure. 

But… there was Romelle and the Lions crashing and then the message her dad left for them- things just got busy.

And Lance just got weirder.

But as they slowed to a halt beneath a makeshift particle barrier the pieces started to click into place. Starting with the small army of Lance-like people rushing towards them and ending with the fact that her next breath nearly choked her.

The smell of smog rolls through the room, eddying up against her in waves.

It's not… unpleasant, she admits after a few more inhales. But it’s unexpected. It doesn’t belong. She looks around the hangar bay, looking for dark plumes of fouled air. Sees nothing. Just a few spare ships, a few spare personnel. Just Lance, on his knees, crying and laughing and surrounded by family.

Slowly, a horrible idea starts to prickle in the back of her head. More details, once ignored, falling into place.She tries to shove it down, stop her own brain from thinking along to traitorous thoughts. 

Watches Lance rub his face against his niece and nephew and reach out to pull his trembling family into long arms. Watches and waits and breathes gently in, doing her best to keep her open jaw out of sight and pointed towards the huddle of accents and tanned skin and clamoring limbs.

Tears are rolling down Lance’s face. The smell seems to thicken in the air.

She swallows, thinks for a moment, and rolls the air around her palate the way she remembers playing at in primary school after the required lesson on history and dynamics. She’d outguessed her brother what was for dinner for weeks after.

The scent of smoke seemed more… mellow, even as it surged through the room once again. It was rounder now, less acerbic. More like heating metal and warm pans. It was still primarily smoke, sure, but now it clung like nights gathered around an open fire. Like a late dinner sizzling away into the dancing shadows, like taking off her shoes after along day of walking. Something less than sheer heat now. Less fresh remains of kindling and more familiar.

“Huh. Campfire.” she announces and ignores Shiro's appalled look. 

She thinks of starry nights and hushed voices and wonders when this happened. Wonders how she hadn’t noticed when they were all of five (four and a half) humans in space.

* * *

The fresh smoke scent isn’t gentle; it’s not a dancing hearth or burning candle-wax. It’s certainly not a campfire. The smell is reminiscent of the aftermath of battles. The scent of the lions winding down. Carbon scoring and damage and beneath that an almost iron smell that’s never quite left his own skin.

(Another holdover from the arena.)

It sets something under his chest twitching, stands his hair on end. Pidge hums and he nearly gags as she opens her mouth to scent the air once more.

It’s smoke.

An aftermath, a sign of something gone irreparably wrong. A concrete notice that something has been irreversibly lost.

Still... He watches as three more people, tan skinned and dark haired, throw themselves into the shifting pile of reunion and joy.

It’s _Lance_.

Goofy, home-sick, irresponsible Lance. Shiro swallows and huffs a breath out of his nose, parting his lips slightly enough to draw in a subtle breath.

He regrets it immediately.

It’s acrid, almost oppressive. Cut across without any scent of wood, metal, plastic or tinder of any kind. Just the sharp rend of wounded ozone and the boiling sense-memory of heat. It cuts through the lungs, settles deep, and burns.

Shiro winces deeper into the shuttle, eyes unable to remain on the growing huddle of McClains.

He doesn’t know how they can stand it.

He’s feet away and it’s already choking.

* * *

The smell of smoke is almost overpowering. The whole room is filling with it. The air in his lungs _burns_.

Keith can feel his head going fuzzy once again and try as he might, shake his head and breathe out and chew his tongue, he can’t help but want to give in. He breathes. Soldered wires, a cookstove on a busy night, the residue in the air after an explosion, the copper-tang taste of ozone and cinders.

Fire has always been a… complicated element in his life.

But nothing has ever quite been like this.

It picks him up and wrings him out all at once. Punches the air out of his lungs and settles in deep. It's heady and intoxicating and ephemeral. Too much and not enough all at once in equal measures as to drive him mad.

He feels himself start to sway, clenches his hands down hard over the back of the nearest chair. An old fear raises its ancient head.

Keith always registered as a Beta.

Every test pinged back **normal** with a few inconsistencies that were, honestly, not terribly unusual. Large eyes, soft hair, unusually strong and swift. Good holdovers from latent omegan genes, people muttered. Now if only he didn’t have such an _alpha temper_ they would twitter and chortle.

But he did have a temper and he did have the sheer skill to back his ‘attitude’ up. He was faster than everyone else, stronger than they expected him to be, smarter than they felt he had any right.

Why should he have to bow down to their expectations?

So he didn’t. He pushed, he bucked, he shrugged and one day he stole the car of a Garrison official and changed his entire life.

Until now. Until now, where he feels fourteen and feverish and weak-kneed, wondering what the hell is happening to him all over again.

The same consuming scent of smog is making a home in his lungs and head.

By the time Iverson’s approached them he’s leapt down to the opposite side of the shuttle, grateful for Kosmo’s distraction and the infallible human-pack-puppy response that remains intact in even grown men.

He doesn’t let his eyes stray to the pile of McClains.

Doesn’t call the others over.

Doesn’t demand answers or ask questions or even twitch in Lance’s direction.

He lets the other take his hand before they part ways.

He doesn’t hold on. Doesn’t tell Lance he never wants to breath filtered air again, never wants to breathe air that doesn’t tell him that the other is _alive_ and _right there_ and _so happy he could burst_.

He breaths, slow and deep and ignores the way Shiro’s tucked his wrinkled nose down into his own shoulder and Krolia’s raised brows.

He regrets, later, that he’d slipped on his old gloves.

* * *

He does make it back to earth, in time even.

But the Galra have attacked.

Supplies are short.

There are no suppressants.

In fact, be it due to stress or radiation or simply a paradigm shift, there’s been a small resurgence of Alpha and Omega presentations. Some want them out on the front lines. Some want them cast out of the camps, horror stories and half-remembered propaganda warning them that A’s and O’s were unstable. That an Alpha would dominate and destroy, that an Omega would connive and control. Misheld beliefs changing what were once people, fellow survivors, into easily boxed concepts. Sorted and shipped away, to front lines and resistance missions and locked rooms.

There are no suppressants and Lance knows there won’t be any more secret even as he wrapped his arms around his niece and nephew.

Nadia smells like salt air. His niece smells like seaweed in the sun, rotten and sweet and salty. They’re in a Texan desert in a war and the only explanation is that she’s like Lance. Another alpha, presented far earlier. Stress, his mother tells him as she stares sadly at her youngest and her granddaughter. Nadia presses closer to his chest, muttering in her sleep just like her mother, smoke and salt spilling over the room and its inhabitants. Sylvio snores softly, lines in his forehead easing out against Lance’s shin as he breathes in and is at peace.

Luis smiles, silent and strong and in his family’s corner as ever. Marco drops his head between his knees and laughs and laughs and laughs. Lisa hums under her breath as she slips a needle through a jacket that reminds Lance a lot of his own. Rachel leans over her and bemoans the smell sticking in her hair, just the way she did when he was thirteen and terrified and huddled between the old couch and the wall in the living room. They’re okay.

There are no suppressants.

Lance, ice in his veins, is glad to hear that there’s not been time for much experimentation either. (Something in him is soothed by the confirmation that they don’t know about Nadia. That they think, that he _is_ , the only alpha on base. He tries not to pay that feeling any attention.) 

They have, apparently, been too busy trying to keep him alive. Despite the brave show he’s putting on for the kids ( _and they’re so big now)_ he aches all over in a way he hasn’t since the summer he turned fifteen and grew a foot taller in six weeks. 

He’s not really surprised when they tell him it’s happening again. His limbs feel too-long and too-heavy and did he mention that he _aches_ ? Apparently, Lisa says, that’s what happens when your body starts _eating itself_ to try and create _more_ from _nothing_ and, what, exactly has he been eating the last year; his iron levels are _way too low_. 

It explains the six IV poles surrounding him and the crazy number of bags hanging off each like christmas baubles. 

In retrospect, that’d been the summer Lisa’d insisted he cut his doses in half. Makes sense it’d happen _again_ what with the forced-flush he’s been on the last few weeks in space. 

Despite all of this, or maybe because of it, he’s the first of the paladins to wake up from the healing comas. His body is in overdrive. It’s bucking against years of chemical alterations and has the backing of the altean isotopes he’s been stop-gapping his suppressants with and the fact that he’s still only seventeen and thus still well within the reach of puberty. It’s unprecedented and unexpected and, without those suppressants and blockers, completely unstoppable.

He backs away when they tell him this, closer to his siblings, niece and nephew pressed to the small of his back, and makes his excuses as soon as he is able to get out of bed.

He doesn’t go back.

If Marco sneaks a wheelchair away when noone is looking, then that’s their business. Sylvio likes pushing at the wheels anyway and toys are hard to find. If Lance’s hands, wrists, cheeks find their way against his family’s clothes and faces and hair, compulsively spreading scent and touching to make sure that they’re alive and real and there then that’s his problem. His compulsion.

If he feels the need to search out the other paladins, to sit and watch them breathe, to clasp their hands between his and to hold as tight as they had in the blackness of space? To wait and watch over them while they sleep?

...He doesn’t know what the others know. If the others know.

He doesn’t want to know.

So he doesn’t go to them. Doesn’t sit near them or with them or touch them.

He works, slowly but steadily, with Lisa. Leans on Marco and Luis as they help him walk around the halls and sneak weights and bands and poorly recorded videos of the still on-going cadet exercises. 

In inches and steps, he gets better. Rachel sighs about hollow legs and unfair waistlines and shoves more food his way every chance she gets. He lets her worry in her own way, the same as he lets Silvio paint his nails and Nadia scruff fingers through his too-long hair and doesn’t whine as his mother makes him do _two more reps of those, dear, you looked shaky the other day and if you’re serious about going back out there-_

He doesn’t go see them.

But they need their lions. They need Voltron, if they’re going to save the Earth. Their home.

Lance closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and requests his sister be the one to travel with him instead of any of the Garrison graduates.

None of them will meet his eyes anyway.

His request is summarily granted.

* * *

They win the day.

He saves Veronica’s life. Red comes for him, which has to be the biggest shock he’s had since his presentation, and they form Voltron.

They fall.

The Atlas shudders to life. 

Voltron rises again. 

...Allura never comes back from that last mission. 

(Lance does his best to not let his regrets, his cowardice, taint her choice. It still hurts, aches, weeps, with the stench of _failure_. He breaks down the first time he catches sight of his reflection.)

* * *

Everything _aches_ , inside and out. 

His legs feel brittle. He’s still too-skinny according to everyone he knows and gets dizzy if he stands up too fast and his arms burn as Luis hurls the medicine ball back at him. 

Allura is _gone_. 

Pidge has been in the labs with the Alteans for so long that Lance hopes _someone_ reminds them to hydrate. Brings them food, maybe. Makes sure that they’re not asleep somewhere precarious with computer keys pressing their glasses awry and-

Hunk has gone home. Back to Hawaii with his parents and Shay, ready and prepared to help with the much needed repairs. 

He doesn’t know where Coran is. He knows that he’d rather the older altean was close by, where he could see him. Where he could sic Nadia and Sylvio on the ginger until his voice ran hoarse from storytelling. Maybe get some answers...

And Keith-

_“HEY!_ ” 

-Lance shakes his head, choking the snarl back out of his voice as he glares at Luis. His oldest brother whistles innocently, refusing to make any eye contact at all. 

“Pay attention, conchito, your elf-scales are flashing again.” 

“They’re not _elf-scales_ , Luis, jeez.” Lance grumbles, _it’s not a_ growl _Ma oh my gosh,_ and hurls the weight back before flopping to the floor. 

They are a touchy subject though. Almost enough to distract him from thoughts of their errant fearless leader. Almost, but not quite. 

He hasn’t seen hide or hair of Keith in days. Part of that, of course, is that technically he’s still in rehab (physical therapy, Lisa insists, but he knows what it is) and thus is ensconced the largely abandoned medical wing of the Atlas. Part of it is that he’s dodging most of the Garrison officers like they carry the plague, and a lot of them are treating him the same, and given Keith’s importance as Black Paladin and lead contact with the Blades of Marmora he’s been pretty swamped by the guys in grey and gold trim. 

Lance takes a deep breath and finishes the last exchange of the set. 

And part of it, he thinks, is because he doesn’t quite know what to do. With Keith. 

With anyone from Voltron, really. He reaches up and traces the new lines under his eyes. He wants-

“Heyo familo!” 

Lance sighed from his place on the floor, “Marco why.” 

The older McClain winked and shot a pair of finger guns, clicking his tongue against his teeth incessantly until Luis strides over and slings the lankier McClain over one shoulder.

* * *

Their footsteps echo loudly as the three McClain boys hike back to their claimed set of rooms. 

“Why is it so quiet here anyway? Where is everyone? What’s wrong that we don’t know?”

Luis and Marco exchange quite glances at Lance’s low-grade paranoia. 

“What?”

Marco, of course, cracks first. “Lala, there’s nothing wrong with this space except for you.” 

“Marc.” 

Luis’ reprimand doesn't even slow him down. “Seriously, kiddo, you’ve put such a heavy scent marker on this wing no one wants to come anywhere near here. They don’t wanna fuck with that.”

Lance grumbled as Marco slung an arm across his shoulders. “Doesn’t seem to be stopping _you_.” 

“Pack perks little bro.”

“Urgh! We’re not a _pack_! There are no packs!” Lance threw his hands in the air, dislodging Marco’s arm in the process. The older just laughed and ruffled Lance’s hair.

“You totally scruffed Nadia the other day!”

Lance’s hands raised higher, “She was being rude to Veronica!” He squawked. “It was a totally normal reaction!”

Luis just raised an eyebrow, silently rendering judgment on the thoughtless way Lance’s hand had snapped out, grabbed Nadia by the back of her shirt and shook her gently until she hung limp in his fingers. 

“And you licking her as an apology was…?” Lance shoved Marco away and tried not to notice how his palm covered most of the older’s face now.

“Shut uuuuuup!”

* * *

He can’t shake the smell from his nose. It’s getting ridiculous.

Things that used to just be now set him off. Engine fuel, exhaust, the sharp-hot-metal smell of the Lions after a flight, the tang in the air of his blade against another. Every hint of smoke makes something jump in his chest. Its too much and not enough all at once. Driving him out of his skin and head.

Only one thing’s been able to soothe it the last few days and he can feel his teeth grind together at just the thought.

It had been _weeks_ and still the scent clung to the woven cloth. He’d been forced to leave his gloves, especially the right one, tucked away in a drawer in his quarters aboard the Atlas. Had to ignore people’s silent questions at his bare hands, endured Shiro’s pointed looks and Pidge’s unsubtle muttering about correlation and compatibility. He’s not sure where Hunk is, hasn’t seen him much after that one, sudden, embrace. He hasn’t even seen Lance since before the battle. The other had all but disappeared, fled from them into the safety of his family, of his pack, far, far away from- 

A sudden shudder wracks his body, starting in the base of his spine and working up through his chest until he was trembling through under the force of it.

He was having some sort of _existential crisis_ over a _handshake_.

Sheer irritation turned the forming whine into a gritted hiss as it boiled out of his throat.

Ridiculous.

...He wants to _lick it off his glove._ Have the aroma fill his lungs, fog his head, leave him insensate to match the strange insatiable desire that was clawing away at him from the inside out. The very thought makes his mouth water.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. He was _human_. Human enough that the Castle couldn’t distinguish any difference. Human enough that the Blade’s remedies and overpowering smells, scents, often made him wretch and gag and thank every star above for the air filters in the mamoran mask.

He remembers growled commands and attempts at hazing and slowly piecing together that they were neither and both at the same time. Remembered feeling the sinking relief that he’d established himself outside of the inner hierarchy, remembered leaning back on Red’s still burning presence those first nights in aching gratefulness that he was, Blade or not, his _father’s_ son.

The glove is pressed to his face, fabric rolled over and over and over between his thumb and forefinger. Scent wafting up and over him, swelling and rising under those coaxing passes of pressure.

He grinds his head against the wall, unsure of when he’d moved towards it.

What was _wrong_ with him?

The Mark wasn’t even on his _skin_.

The thought buckles his knees, leaves him to scramble half-heartedly against the smooth surface.

What… what would it be like if it _were_?!

The idea of the heavy, heady, scent pressed right against his skin, right against his primaries, or his arterials - the keen furls out unrepressed, eyes rolling back and watering as he presses them closed. His hips shift unbidden, finding a solid surface and pressing against it.

He bites a warbling keen into his glove covered wrist. His hips grind forward in short jerking circles, scattering his thoughts.

His head is a jumble of pheromones, nonsense smells that existed more in his head than in his present reality, suffusing him with every jerk of his hips. The tang of torn ozone, smoke, and _sharp blue eyes_.

He feels his body clench, a trickle of something running down the inside of his thighs as his orgasm drops him to the floor. Breaths coming in gasps, he rolls his hips almost experimentally and chokes on the night air. His head tips back, throat bared to the empty ceiling above him. Pretending, in the mess of his scattered mind, that there is another behind him. Drinking in the sigh of his straining lungs, his strong spine, his bent knees and offered weakness.

Bolts of lust ripple through him, imagining what he would look like from the bed. Picturing certain eyes and steady hands and calloused trigger fingers trailing over his spine, up the back of his neck, ghosting around the shell of his ear. Keith bites down on his own knuckles, tongue laving over his shaking fingers as he rubs his head against the wall.

He nurses softly on his glove covered wrist. Another involuntary clench sending shivers through his body, his cock twitching, untouched and sensitive in its confines.

HIs brain melts with the images rattling through him. 

What does he want? For the young alpha to lean along him? Press gentle hands along his spine and over his lower back, kneading and soothing and pressing just shy of where he wanted - wanted - so badly. For strong hands to tighten over his hips and pull him down, force him lower onto his knees, to stretch up and latch his mouth - teeth - sharp and firm - to suck over the back of his neck. To be pressed down onto the floor and claimed - made to bare his throat, stomach, hips -

The images scatter, a veritable riptide dragging him under, shaking him from the tips of his hair down to his toes. Warmth suffusing him soon after. He feels himself nuzzle into the carpet and then - nothing.

He blinks slowly. He's curled on his side. He feels… light. Empty, almost. A soft ache curls below his stomach, appeased and alone and still, endlessly, wanting. He rubs at the feeling like a bruise, feels it bloom beneath his hands, sickly-sweet and _aching_.

Keith stares down the line of his arm, eyes slowly focusing on the soaked glove. He inhales and winces, nose wrinkling at the dry-arid scent souring the air of his room. He pulls his arm in and, without thinking, presses the glove against his half open mouth.

Scent floods him. First his own - sour from his breath and then more of the same dry, hollow, coarse scent still swirling around him. Coming _from_ him. Then, buried but still there, the heady, sultry scent of smoke. It curls through his lungs, shifting and mixing until his mouth waters. The sour-dry swelling into something different, something more, with every pull of Lance into his lungs. 

He rips his hand from his face, shaking. 

_What is happening...?_

* * *

Lance shoots bolt upright in his bed. 

The room is dead silent, the rest of his family spread out into different rooms for the night. It’s Lisa’s turn to have the kids, Marco and Luis are probably still up drinking, Rachel is likely with them trying to steal a bottle and Lance knows his mother went to sleep and washed her hands of the whole affair around nine. 

He… Lance scrubs a hand down his face. He thinks he ducked out. He still wasn’t allowed any alcohol (and no one wanted to cross Lisa because she _would_ find out) and his everything still ached and- and- _god_ , what was that _smell?_

  
  
  


“Lance?” 

“Pfft! Don’t try and distract m- hang on.”

“Didn’t he go to bed? I thought Lisa said-”

“Well he’s up now! Lance. Lance! Hey!”

“Where is he going?”

“Ugh! Oh my god, what _is_ that?”

“It’s getting worse, crap. He’s _really_ stinking up-”

“Shit! Marco, go get Lisa. Luis help me grab-!”

_...Keith?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Alpha and Omega have enhanced senses of smell compared to Beta.  
> Lance / the AU have a few details missing and/or wrong about Alpha&Omega and I tried to make that clear early on?? IDK if I succeeded tho.  
> Beta CAN smell and detect pheromones - it’s just that as they don’t really produce any themselves it’s a common fallacy that they can’t smell any (because without Alpha and Omega there aren't’ really any around to smell).  
> So, yes, everyone CAN smell Lance and that's why he's been using blockers and suppressants and a self-care routine on top of that (YES that self-care set up was totally used sneakily by his sisters to try and combat Lance's dysphoria/self-loathing here. Badass McClain women are my jam mkay?)  
> In this case, Lance also is just a stinky boi and that doesn’t help matters.  
> Maybe if he was something more palatable like pine or mint or sea-salt… but he’s gun-smoke and ruin and ashes and there’s really no hiding that.  
> It certainly gets Keith going tho ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
> 
> Also "(four and a half) humans in space" was fun to type.


	2. A Galra Thing1 (aka this was a oneshot and then it wasn't)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cosmo drops Keith on a masturbating Lance and then things get out of hand.
> 
> Somewhere post Galran Warship but pre Earth arrival.  
> Mid "Road Trip" most likely but like... *waves hands angrily at s4-8* fuck canon anyways.

Teleporting was always strange.

Keith would never get used to it. The concept rested somewhere firmly between the fantastical tales of his childhood and straight up magic. The reality was his stomach falling unpleasantly towards somewhere near his toes and the world swirling behind his eyes, often before he could manage to close them in self-defense. It had taken _months_ of practice for him to be able to fight post-warp.

Sometimes he thinks he’s still finding bruises from the practice.

A long low noise chases the nausea out of him unexpectedly. Something warm, and decidedly _not_ g-forces, flushes through to his fingertips in its wake. His head swivels mindlessly to track the sound without the rest of his permission. The warmth that settles in his belly erupts into flame, his breath snags in his chest on an exhale and stays there in self-preservation as his brain plays catch up.

Crouched maybe two feet away from the bunk in the Red Lion’s hold, Keith suddenly wasn’t sure if he’d have preferred to land with his eyes closed.

He was close enough to see the whites of Lance’s eyes.

More than close enough to track the drop of sweat that slowly ran down dark skin and curling hairs until it slid into a stilling hand- Keith jerked his eyes away, a shout escaping him as he lost all sense of balance and crashed to the floor, face aflame.

Another cry echoed his own, shrill and alarmed and as much as it hurt his ears Keith really couldn’t begrudge Lance that one.

He squeezes his eyes shut and waits for his pulse to stop thundering through him. Waits for more shouting, for Lance to throw a punch, for- for _anything_ except the flush in his face and the blood _boiling_ in his veins and stomach and-

Kosmo whines and slips out from under his fingers, pressing his huge flank along the bunk and rubbing his snout along the sheeted mattress, displeased by all the noise.

Keith risks a glance up.

Lance is gone.

He blinks hard, feeling a little crazy and a little concerned.

“ _Kosmo!_ ” He hisses, voice and shoulders low “Kosmo get back here!”

A hand slips out (thankfully _clean_ ) from beneath the pile of covers, and okay to be fair Keith had no idea Lance was even capable of holding still much less being that quiet, and spasms in the air for a second before robotically skritching at the cosmic-wolf’s triangular ears. He watches in dumb silence as the wolf’s back leg twitched before out right kicking against the floor. _Thud thud thud_ s almost in time with the long fingers digging into the base of each ear, crooking through the thick blue fur to find just the right spot.

Kosmo pants, proud of himself, loudly in the strained silence. The wolf turns after a few moments of petting induced bliss to look over his shoulder at Keith; dark tongue lolling out of his mouth as he smiles doggishly at him.

_Traitor._

He wasn’t quite sure if he was thinking of the boy in the bed or the wolf…

The silence stretches endlessly on, broken only by Kosmo’s happy pants and the jangling of both boy’s nerves.

The blanket slips further, revealing a wrist, a forearm, the crook of an elbow.

Keith’s eyes widen, panic sparking in his chest, already tracing gravity’s path.

A blue eye, clear and sharp and _staring right at him_ , peers out from the shadowy protection offered by the thin red blanket. Which is to say, not much at all as it slips off the cocked elbow and slides to puddle past a flash of ribs and quivering muscl-

He crawls forward, ignoring the hitch of breath echoing across from him, digs his fingers into Kosmo’s ruff and squeezes his eyes shut.

He has to yank three times for the dumb mutt to get the message and return them to Black.

* * *

He reappears, stomach sliding around for all the wrong reasons, knelt near the center of Black’s hold.

He pulls in a deep breath before shoving Kosmo ineffectively. The wolf pants hot doggy breath in his face before striding away in a click-click-click of defiant pawsteps. Shiro’s soft snores echo comfortingly towards him and the _strop strop strop_ of whatever Krolia is doing to clean who knows which part of her rifle filled the silence comfortingly between his brother’s breaths.

Krolia, _his_ mother _oh for-_ , raises an eyebrow at his graceless re-entry. He shoves himself to his feet and stalks towards the cockpit, determined to answer no questions and get at least a few hours rest in the pilot’s chair.

He’s had enough surprises for one night.

* * *

He gets handfuls of sleep. Snatches of REM between gut jerking flashes of dark skin and bright eyes and an _entirely unnecessary_ replay of that sonorous noise that still chased flashes of heat through-

Anyway.

He has a hard time remembering _why_ he’d even gone over to Red in the first place.

It puts him in, he’s mature enough to admit, a rough mood. He does his best to not take it out on the others (though if his mother glances between him and the Red Lion _one more time_ ).

As the day (? time is complicated away from suns) ticks away against the stars under the Lions’ gliding paws it comes back to him (along with a lack of tan lines and long long- _no_ , nope, not thinking about it). As Hunk chatters over the coms. As Pidge rattles off facts and one-liners and probabilities. As Romelle asks endless questions and Allura fields answers with Coran in the softest voice he’s ever heard from the Princess.

Because Lance?   
Chatty, awkward, Lance ( _Lance_ , of all people - who couldn’t even shut up when they’re lives were literally on the line) is silent.

No one notices.

Coran doesn’t reel him in into any anecdotes of his youth. Hunk doesn’t reach out or snag his best friend into the debate he’s got going with Pidge over some old tv-show. Allura hasn’t said a word to Lance either. Doesn’t seem to have anything to snap at him about, mostly Keith thinks with something like worry gnawing at him, because the blue-no, red, paladin _wasn’t talking_.

He just flew. Perfectly in formation, perfectly in time, in utter, perfect, silence. 

It was driving Keith _crazy_.

_This isn’t what I remember…_

He tightened his grip until the gloves of his mamoran uniform (the only other thing he owned that still fit) creaked alarmingly. He hadn’t been gone _that_ long!

Shiro, surprisingly, wasn’t much help. Everytime he turned to him to gauge the situation his brother either smiled (which was his way of saying ‘you work it out’, the smug jerk) or just eventually staring back in confusion once he noticed Keith looking at him.

He wasn’t asking Krolia.

Lance’s com line remained silent.

Keith grit his teeth, “Shiro, hold onto something.” before slamming back on Black’s stick.

Black slammed up and under Red’s left legs forcing Lance to roll to the side, out of their little formation, or risk getting slammed further into space.

“Hey!”

The indignant, pitchy, shout was music to his ears.

Keith smirked, “Stay awake back there. The Lions are low on power, we can’t afford for you to drift off.”

The coms burst open in teasing chatter, Lance returning verbal fire with his usual (lack of) grace. Keith hummed, pleased, and ignored Shiro’s disapproving huff. There was just something nostalgic about it all.

“Deja vu…” he mutters, eyes riveted on the spiking lines of his team’s com channels and the stretch of black between them and Earth.

He doesn’t notice the knowing glances exchanged behind him.

* * *

They fly for hours, chatting and trading stories over the coms. Coran about some fantastical creature everyone but Allura is certain he made up, Hunk about the first meal he’s going to cook for his family (“which of course includes you guys!”), Pidge stuttering through permutations of what she’ll say to her mother, Romelle and Allura singing and trading what sound like nursery rhymes (albeit very violent ones… wasn’t Altea supposed to be a world of diplomats?). Shiro, for the most part, stays quiet. He distracts with one or two asides but Keith knows he’s is wondering quietly about Adam. It’s not something Shiro’s ready to let the others in on, though, so when the others attempt to rope the oldest in Keith does what he does best and defends his brother.

Lance, with some prompting (ie: goading) eventually joins in. Much to everyone’s surprise, nothing about girls falls out of his mouth. Instead, he confesses that the first thing he’s going to do is hug his family - all comments about garlic knots and beaches and girls completely absent in the sudden well of choked emotion. At Allura’s gentle prompting (and Romelle’s more direct, if absurd, questions) Lance spends a good ten minutes almost waxing lyrical about his “perfect and precious” nephew and niece. He’s enthusiastic, without ever quite tipping into annoying. It’s not a role Keith ever considered for the team’s most obnoxious member (excluding Slav), the unarguably proud uncle but it… fits. Lance talks about Silvio and Nadia’s interests, their laughter, their eyes and little fingers and terrible habits of getting into _everything_. He talks about days on the beach. He talks about wires chewed and pulled and electronics spectacularly crashed. He talks about homework turned in and lost and video calls and recorded sing alongs.

He doesn’t ask any questions of his own. He doesn’t ask _Keith_ any questions (even though, just this once-). Doesn’t demand answers about Krolia, about Romelle, about Kosmo. About him. Lance just… _responds_ . He doesn’t initiate, he doesn’t challenge, he doesn’t… _he doesn’t reach out_. Not to any of them. He talks until those ten minutes are up, until the questions slow and run dry along with everyone’s attention, and then, impossibly, goes quiet.

Keith’s stomach churns as the paladins switch topics, already counting the minutes in which Lance, once again, has fallen eerily silent (unprompted and unresponsive and _what the fuck was going on)._ Unnoticed.

What happened to the team while he was gone?

_This wasn’t what he remembered._

* * *

Keith waits until they’ve picked a quiet patch of black to crash in, until the coms fall quiet and Shiro starts to snore. He waits and listens and runs his fingers through Kosmo’s ruff and lands in the Red Lion’s hold, this time with his eyes shut.

“Lance.”

A slew of startled noises, but oddly no curses, echo through the small sleeping area.

Lance is awake. Good.

He smirks but keeps his eyes shut, fingers pressing nonsense patterns over Kosmo’s fur. Once, twice, “You decent?”

He ignores the stutter in his voice. Lance, for once, has the grace to as well.

“Yeah.”

The other boy’s voice is strained, an undertick of nerves, and it dawns on Keith that maybe this, cornering Lance in what’s effectively his bedroom, wasn’t the best idea to begin with. Even before the- before they- maybe he should have just waited until they found a planet or asteroid to dock at and-

His hand slaps against the metal floor, Kosmo disappearing through his fingertips faster than he can corralle his racing thoughts. Lance jumps at the noise and Keith bites down on his own wince (not a flinch) as the other moves toward the noise instead of away.

“Woah! You…” Lance trails off as their eyes meet, swallowing hard. “You okay?”

They’re almost nose to nose. Lance on his knees a few inches away from Keith, hands half extended as if he’d moved to help, to touch, and then thought better of it. Keith’s breath catches in his throat, his eyes tingling faintly with the desire to blink. He was here to do something- there was a reason and he- but- His mind latched onto the most obvious problem. How was he supposed to get _back_ without Kosmo?

 _Doesn’t fetch, doesn’t sit, doesn’t_ stay…

They both finally blink. Lance still doesn’t look away and right, he’d asked a question hadn’t he?

“Yeah. I’m. I’m fine.”

Neither of them pull away. Keith’s hand is still pressed against the floor, his weight tipped a little forward. It puts him lower than Lance’s crouching eye level, means he’s looking, just slightly, up at Lance. It feels familiar. The ghost of heat from Lance’s exhale washes over his face, warm and ticklish and smelling oddly like lavender.

Keith jerks away mid inhale, suddenly aware of how _weird_ this is. Lance rocks back to sit on his heels and then, slowly, rises to his feet, backing away. Bare arms slide around an equally bare torsos in a defensive cross, hands curling over his own ribs.

He pushes himself upright too, moving closer to the wall behind him. Giving Lance… space. He tries not to let his displeasure show. It feels like there’s been nothing but space between them for far too long. Literally.

“Lance, I-”  
  
“So I-”

The pair blink and then verbally retreat as they speak over each other.

Keith catches himself crossing his own arms and realize that, maybe, the tan hands clutching at tan ribs were less for defense against Keith and more for comfort.

“You, you go first.” Lance struggles to look at him and Keith’s stomach sinks. They’re not going to be able to brush this off. It’s Lance holding his hand and passing out injured in his arms all over again, except this time there’s no way for the other to pretend he can’t remember it. He might as well be back with the Blades. They’re standing feet away from each other in the Red Lion’s hold and it feels like they're light years apart. He stares self consciously down at his feet. That was… maybe too literal.

He can feel Lance staring at him. Eyes sweeping up and down and he isn’t going to look up and find out if it’s a critical look. Absolutely not.

He’d prefer to deal with another ambush, actually, but this is… He did this. Put them back here, behind square one. He has to fix this.

“I’m… sorry, I burst in here. I shouldn’t have done that.” Lance makes a sort of wounded noise and a horrible thought dawns on Keith. Flashes of a remembered conversation playing behind his eyes.

“Red is _your_ lion, now. Nothing is going to change that. The team needs you.” He winces, thinks of the months without Shiro, before his mother and the space whale and the horrible whirlpool of guilt and despair Lance hadn’t let him succumb to. “I need you,” He turns and faces Lance, takes in his wide eyes and hunched figure and squares his shoulders. “So just…” Keith shrugs and widens his stance, bracing. He can’t - he won’t look at Lance for this. Figures it’s fair even if-

“Just - I’ll give you a free hit and we can put this behind us or whatever.”

“ _Quiznack_.”

He turns back in time to see Lance drag his hands away from his own face. The other takes one, two long strides towards him, reaches up, which is _still_ weird, and grabs him by his hair.

Keith is reluctantly impressed by that decision even as he braces himself for the freebie hit he’s going to allow Lance to have. He didn’t think Lance had that sort of tactical thinking in him. The other wouldn’t have found purchase on the armored mamoran suit so he just bypassed it entirely and- his thoughts fizzle into nothingness, electricity sparking along his scalp and nerves. His breath catches in his throat, caught somewhere between the press of soft lips to his own and that firm grasp on his hair.

(He as no idea it has nothing it do with tactics and everything to do with Lance’s years-long obsession with his ‘mullet’).

One hand slowly slips up to curl behind an ear, fingers pushing through his hair until half his skull is cradled and tipped downwards, thumb rubbing absent circles into his temple. The other cards through the loose strands, never staying still or in the same place.

He didn’t think he’d like someone touching his head, had been sensitive about it when he was younger. Had learned the hard way that it was just another way for someone to hurt him. Hadn’t let anyone other than Shiro, and occasionally Adam, ruffle or brush or touch his head at all. Another curl of warmth twists through him along with Lance’s fingers. His eyelids lower. _There’s one thing to be wrong about._

There’s something about the pressure on his scalp, the curl and slide of warmth along his thin skin, that’s sending him half-lidded and almost hazy.

The kiss though… After a moment Keith forces one eye fully open. Lance’s eyes are closed. Have probably, he thinks, been closed the entire time. He’s not sure what to… do, here. He tries closing his own eyes but yanks them open seconds later, scanning the bunk around them out of habit. Paranoia too deep set. He tries to focus on the smooth slide of Lance’s lips over his own. It’s… sort of bad. It’s also sort of good.

It’s not like he has a lot to compare it to, alright?

He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, half raised in defense and clutching uselessly at the air. It’s all pressure and breathing through noses and the brush of their eyelashes across the other’s cheeks.

Then Lance’s tongue swipes across the seam of his mouth.

He almost recoils, because _wet_ and _out of nowhere_ , but wouldn’t have gotten far because in the same half second the hands in his hair twist further, locking him in place. A small noise, _not a moan_ , spills from him at the sharp tug.

Lance smiles against his lips. Keith, eyes still open, glares and pushes back into the other’s hands, forcing Lance to chase his mouth that spare inch higher. Blunt fingers press him back down, surprising strength in such soft hands. He draws breath to say as much when teeth nip at his lower lip, ripping thought from him in a zing of pleasure.

Lance’s tongue swipes across his lips again, poking and laving little kitten-licks at the not-wound before slowly closing his teeth around another part. The next bite is almost as soft as Lance’s pressure swollen lips, just a blunt wash of warmth and the prick of not-pain not-sharp that sends his thoughts scattering again.

His hands cover Lance’s elbows, fingers locked around the other’s arms to keep him _right there_. He wonders when he raised his hands. Then Lance nips twice in succession and all that’s left in his head is the flash of pleasure and the fresh intake of air filling his lungs. Cool and sweet and needed and he cants forward, pressing into the second bite.

What started as a flinch turns into an intentional rocking; back against the steady pressure in strong hands, forward into the new warm-slick-confusing sensation that was, his brain tripped over the stray thought, kissing Lance.

That.

Was a thing that was happening.

His hands curl again, distractedly mapping the hard cap of the other’s elbows. Palms cupping over solid bone and tendon and the edges of new corded muscle hidden beneath the soft hairs lining the others forear- Lance retreats only to nip once again at Keith’s lips at his thin whine, fingers digging into his hair, moving his head and realigning their lips. The new angle puts pressure on the tender not-wounds Lance has left and Keith’s mouth drops open.

 _God_ that felt _so good_.

He doesn’t know which one of them is humming but the smooth vibrations coax him into relaxing enough that it’s a surprise when Lance presses forward again, their chests bumping together.

Lance draws back with a grumble, rubbing at the imprint in his bare collarbone.

“Ow.”

Keith blinked slowly, thoughts shifting like wet sand. Lance slides one hand out of his hair to rap his knuckles against Keith’s glowing purple chest plate.

Right.

Armor.

Not so great for… he let the thought peter out, elbowing the other back just far enough for him to shuck the suit all in one go.

He smirks at the sudden inhale that echoes through the hold, the short awe-struck noise washing away the niggling thoughts of _vulnerability_ and _didn’t I come here to_ \- Lance jerks his gaze back up to Keith’s eyes, flushing and quickly trying to cover up his reaction.

“That’s _one piece_? How does that-mmmmff!”

 _Right_ . Like he’d been impressed by the _suit_.

Keith reels him in by his shorts and presses his lips down over Lance’s rambling mouth. He watches dark lashes flutter shut, feels the buzz of smothered words ripple through his lips and into his jaw and _well, there’s one way to shut him up_.

Lance wastes no time sliding his hands right back where they’d been, tugging and pulling once more on Keith’s messy hair. A harsh yank sends his eyes fluttering, a gasp opening his mouth anew.

Lance’s shoulders seem to straighten, almost drawing back, squaring, before he pushes forward and - _oh_ . His hips rock into Lance’s and they both jolt out of rhythm, faces awash in hot air as that sonorous noise fills Red once again. They press back into one another, chests heaving. Lance guides Keith back down with those still moving fingers in his hair, rubbing and gripping and pulling and Keith rocks forward into the smaller kisses pressed to his lips, brain fizzing in an out again with the thought of where _else_ those talented fingers might- !!

Lance’s tongue was in Keith’s mouth, rubbing against the sensitive ( _weird-new-good?_ ) roof and tracing his teeth. Keith's back bumps against the wall.

It’s… sort of like the first time. But warmer. Different. Not bad but… new. He sighs into Lance’s mouth, whatever noise made muffled by the kiss, and, after a moment of odd pressure against his teeth, taps his tongue against Lance’s.

Lance hums back and, unexpectedly, starts to coax his tongue forward, running over and under the wet muscle until it’s teased into Lance’s mouth.

He sighs again, through his nose this time, not sure he sees the appeal.

Lance’s teeth are almost unpleasantly slick-smooth on the surface and rough everywhere else. HIs eye-teeth press endearingly into Keith’s tongue. Not quite sharp, not quite dull. He plays with the sensation of _too little_ as he catches sight of a smatter of freckles on Lance’s cheek. They hadn’t been there last he’d seen the other. Or maybe they’d been invisible beneath his helm.

Had they been there before or were they born here, in the cosmos? A new constellation all their own… One blue eye slips open and catches Keith’s stare. Lance’s brow furrows and then, _oh_ , maybe _that’s_ what the fuss was about, sucks on Keith’s tongue.

One of Lance’s hands drops from his hair (pulling a whine from Keith with it) to trace down his flank. That warm hand presses down in a single firm slide. Exploratory and proprietary all at once, like Lance was mapping a difference he already knew, until he could curl a hand behind Keith’s knee and tug. Keith slowly let his leg rise, guided and cradled in Lance’s grip, to anchor around a slim hip.

Lance’s hands are bigger than Keith remembers, jutting out from his wrists, all long fingers and warm palms. He thinks, inexplicably, of Kosmo when he’d first crashed. _Puppy-paws_. Just one more errant thought swept away under the current between them as Lance pressed forward again, bringing them flush together.

A broken noise judders through the cabin. Keith, or maybe Lance, jolts forward, chasing the static smooth friction building between them. It changes the angle of the kiss, which has broken down into smaller kisses as they keep separating to rend the air with wounded noises, gasping for breath they keep spending on eachother. The susurrus shift of cloth against skin underlying their every move now as they sway together.

Lance bites appreciatively into Keith’s mouth once more, each nip sending that odd flash of sensation ripping through him. The hand in his hair has gone from gripping to stroking and the juxtaposition between it and the stinging bites across his swollen lips makes his eyelids feel heavy. Rounded nails trace gently across his scalp, pulling through his hair in mindless, soothing, swipes.

Each nip is firmer than the last and the bursts of pleasure have Keith pressing forward - chasing one kiss after the other, hauling Lance back where he wants him with his raised leg whenever the other tries to retreat, nuding those shorts lower with every rocking shift.

He hisses into the kiss as the fabric, soft and smooth but _not skin_ , slides over his erection again. Lance hums at him, soothing and pleased and shifts the hand in his hair down, rubbing at the meat of his neck and near his slack jaw. Shivers ripple down his spine, a full body shudder as Lance carefully pulls out the tension with strong, warm pulses of his hand across Keith’s nape.

One of them is moaning, low and long and breathless. Keith hardly cares who, as long as the vibrations buzzing through his lips and head don't stop. Hands, fingers, lips, tongue and teeth all of it is _Lance Lance Lance_ . And then- Lance falls, hard, into the taller's shoulder, skull knocking a bruise into the pair of them.   
Keith grunts, not sure how the lanky idiot in his arms managed that trick. Lance blinks in confusion and draws their mutual attention down to the shorts hanging half off his hips, obviously unaware of Keith’s efforts to remove them subtly. Keith sighs. He reaches forward, careful not to unbalance and send the both of them crashing to the floor, and shoves Lance’s shorts down around his ankles. It takes a few tugs, the elastic waistband catching against _something_ on the way down.

Keith doesn’t get the chance to linger on Lance’s small, shocked, noise or the chance finally look past those broad shoulders and jutting collarbones to seek out the swell he can feel pressing against him. The hand under his leg pivots him away from the wall, braces his weight against Lance unexpectedly, and then moves to clasp hard over one hip, easing him back towards the bed. Tan legs step over and out of discarded shorts as they go, and awkward hop-skip that slides their thighs and shins together, pulling more wounded air from their lungs in an unexpected brush. The lips over his never stop moving, never stop nipping, seeking and teasing.

Keith shifts a hand off Lance’s ass out into the void behind his own back, not really wanting to- _there it is._

The back of his knee hits the bed and Keith braces his weight, stops before he tumbles backwards.

Lance does not. He presses forward, walks right into the cradle of Keith’s braced knees and pushes gently against his chest. The push is so soft that it takes a moment for him to realize Lance wants him to ease back onto the bed. Lance smiles into the kiss, rubs the bridge of his nose against Keith’s in a way that draws a rumbling laugh out of him unexpectedly.

“Come on, move your legs - this isn’t comfortable for anyone.”

Something less like a scoff that he intended burbles out from him, “What, are you tired already?”

Lance drops a hand back to Keith’s knee, apparently a favorite place, and tugs.

“Tired of not laying you down like a _person_ . Who kisses half off a bed? Come _on_ ,”

He rolls his eyes at the whining, _typical Lance_ , and kicks out. His legs latch around Lance and, before the other can finish squeaking in surprise, hauls him up and atop the mattress.

Lance’s flailing hands crash down on either side of Keith’s head, pupils blown wide, that same small noise slipping out of his throat once more.

“W _oa_ h.”

Keith eases one leg between Lance’s splayed knees. “Happy now?”

Lance doesn’t answer, gaze riveted on Keith’s face. The staring was… Keith jerks as Lance swoops down and kisses the tip of his nose.

“Wha- _Hey!_ ”

The corner of his eye, his ear- “Lance what are you-” his cheek, his chin- anywhere seemed to be fair game. Except, as Lance peppered feather-light kisses around his face, for his lips. He squirms under the half-kisses, reaching up to grab at Lance’s face and draws in a gasp as the other jolts forward, knees landing on the inside of Keith’s elbows. His hands slam back down to the mattress and Keith winces at the sharp ache in his arms. He shifts his core, ready to move the other, but swallows and stills as Lance carefully braces himself on his hands once more, shifting his weight courteously over Keith’s palms instead. He slowly lowers his weight down over Keith’s cupped hands, eyes searching for any hint of refusal or pain. Keith feels his throat bob and doesn’t give him one. Lance settles. Keith’s arms remain pinned to the bed, everything but his shoulders trapped beneath a good portion of Lance’s body weight.

Keith wiggles his fingers, testing, staring up into Lance’s quiet concern. They hold in stalemate for a beat, then- _“Lance!_ ” - the other leans down and _nips the bridge of his nose_ , giggling like the maniac he is as he leans back out of Keith’s returning snap of jaws. The sharpshooter dives forward, kissing random bits of his face, building his ire and teasing laughs out of them both.

Keith squirmed again, relishing the careful weight keeping his palms flat to the mattress, dodging what he could and laughing when Lance hit the pillow or his hair and humming in triumph when he managed to redirect the other to his lips for short, sweet, kisses. Eventually, though, he began shifting beneath Lance, tiring of whatever game this was.

Lance yelps as Keith rocks around. In a fit of returning playfulness, Keith thrashes a little beneath the other - just to see what he’ll do. To see if Lance would fall right off the bed, to see if he’ll try and pin him again, maybe reinforce the too-careful pressure pushing him down into the mattress.

But he’s bigger than Lance now, stronger.

So when Lance moves to press him back down, he slips, skin skidding over skin, and his hand closes over Keith’s throat instead.

Time stands still.

He can feel each finger curl inwards, seeking purchase in a delicious slide of pressure and unmediated power. The broad swell of Lance’s hand pressing firmly down over his exposed adam’s apple.

Keith’s eyes roll into the back of his head.

Cum splatters up his chest. Lance’s grip flexes, curling around the noise rattling out of him as he shakes and shakes and the orgasm feels less like tipping off a precipice and more as though it were wrung out of him…

“Woah.”

* * *

He comes to, world swimming into focus with a flutter of lashes. The lights were low, nearly completely off, and Keith spends a moment to wonder why everything was so clear before it occurred to him that he had no recollection of them dimming.

Everything slams back into him with a jolt, body aching and sensitive in the best way, as a finger traces a nonsense pattern into his shivering skin. He looks down.

Lance stares up at him, cheek resting on Keith’s chest, blue eyes blown black. He smiles smugly at something on Keith’s face, “Huh. Galran thing?”

Keith, mind still floating back together, opens his mouth to ask what the hell Lance was talking abou-- _aaah!_ \--nd chokes on a moan as Lance turns and bites down on his pec without warning.

A warm tongue laves over the bite, _it hasn’t even broken the skin_ a part of him whines, and a rumble shakes through Lance’s chest and into Keith’s core. The sensation echoes through his ribcage, around his chest, settles in his lungs and rattles right back out into the pink crescent mark of teeth Lance has left over his pectoral. It feels _so good_.

His vision flutters back in.

Lance is almost nose to nose with him now, breath hot on his face, still smelling vaguely of lavender. Unbeknownst to the halfling, Keith’s eyes are glowing in the dark; round pupil blown wide to catch the light as purple eyes strike against the soft light dancing across his cheekbones.

Lance grins, “Yeah, definitely a galra thing.”, and props himself up on his elbows to look down the length of their bodies.

The rush of cold air on his previously body-warmed cock, as well as the friction generated by the shift, sends shivers rocking through Keith. He’d be embarrassed if it wasn’t perfectly obvious that Lance was equally, if not more, affected by the movement.

Keith finds himself distracted by the play of muscle cording up Lance’s once-skinny arms, the jut of ribs and the padding resolving itself into new muscle playing under dark skin. His eyes trace the dusting of curly hair that sweeps down from his navel to- Keith’s face flushes hot, mind stuttering to a blank, surprised, halt as his eyes fix just past his own reburgeoning interest.

Blue eyes flash almost coyly up at him from beneath dark lashes before Lance follows his gaze and flushes. The younger drops his hips back down and buries his face in Keith’s skin, knocking the air from Keith’s lungs in grunt as nearly 160 pounds of lanky paladin drops suddenly onto his diaphragm. He takes a slightly stunned breath, mind still churning over what he finally got a good look at and _what he can still feel pressing into his hip_ , and stares incredulously at the top of Lance’s head. The other is… actually hiding as much as he can without actually rolling off of Keith. _Ridiculous._

“Lance.”

A noise like a particularly upset whale rumbles across his skin, ticklish and damp and _not at all attractive, stop that._

Lance presses a grin into his skin as they both feel Keith twitch against his stomach.

 _“Lance.”_ The boy flinches at the snap in Keith’s voice, smile disappearing, pointed nose digging into Keith’s chest. It presses further in as Keith lifts his thigh up in retaliation and the pair shudder in unexpected pleasure.

“How?” He choked out, mind still skirting around the glimpse and the hot, hard, evidence Lance was struggling, and failing, to not hump against him. “I’ve seen you in _skinny jeans_.”

It takes him a second, corresponding with the stilling of his hips, but Lance manages to gasp out, “Underwear.”

Keith waits until the other finally peeks up again to let the full force of his incredulity play across his face.

Lance gusted warm laughter over his skin, “Well I don’t _sleep_ in ‘em!”

The answer, the whole conversation, is so absurd that it breaks the pair of them back down into breathless giggles.

 _Defenders of the Universe Derailed by Dick_ pops unbidden into Keith’s head, nonsensical and in the style of ancient news reports and it’s enough to set him off into a spool of laughter. He can feel Lance’s voice buzz through them where they’re pressed together but can’t make the sounds out above his own surge of mirth.

When he’s blinked small tears from his eyes and stopped spending breath on laughter, he once again catches Lance staring at him.

It’s not what he expects. There’s no… judgement. No confusion. His eyes are… soft. Warm, maybe, almost gentle. Gaze a matching caress as fingers absently trace a rambling path across Keith’s chest. He hums, content. A glide of skin against skin, just firm enough to avoid being ticklish not firm enough to be a real caress.

Something pops like uncorked carbonation, each pass of Lance’s fingers leaving a fizzing trail beneath his skin. It lingers, slipping like sunlight against his nerves as long fingers dance over and around his chest and shoulders. It’s nice, if distracting. Keith lets his toes curl, slowly stretching his limbs beneath Lance’s weight.

The shift and drag of skin sends more of that fizzing through his brain and a hum catches in his throat as he sinks back into the bed; soothed and gentled down.

So it’s a surprise when Lance’s trailing path loops around his pecs. When the still blushing boy carefully takes one nipple between two long fingers and _twists_ , nails kissing into the perky flesh pressed beneath them.

Keith’s hips raise suddenly off the bed, taking Lance with him, pressing thoughtlessly up into the solid heat of him, shaking in little jolts of pleasure as Lance presses down against him.

Lance quakes and shifts his weight, the drag of skin against skin pulling shudders from them both, to prop himself up once more. His hand hasn’t stopped moving, circling the areola, passing the backs of smooth nails against- _ahn!_ -the still sensitive bud. The pair watch, Keith somewhat muzzily, as Lance once again presses his nails against skin. The older’s spent dick twitches with the sensation, clear fluid seeping from the head. A shudder wracks Keith’s frame as confused arousal coils low in his gut.

Lance grins, teeth flashing in the low light, and shifts forward. His tongue laves a sudden path across the neglected pectoral. The warm, wet, press of Lance’s smooth tongue is strangely endearing, and arousing, instead of disgusting. The firm slide stirs something in his chest - before - _shit!_ \- Keith’s head knocks back against the pillow, eyes watering, as Lance digs his teeth into unbitten muscle. He pinches down on the other nipple in the same moment, slowly releasing the pressure as blunt teeth worried Keith’s skin. Just as that sensation teetered towards _too much_ , Lance raked hooked fingers down over the sensitive bud in a slow, hard, swipe. Manicured nails leaving surprisingly deep welts- _Ahaahah!_

Lance sucks down over his bite mark, pulling a bruise up under his hot mouth and Keith’s hips jolt up _again_. He bucks, shoulders rolling, pressing his chest under Lance’s blunt nails and hot mouth and sharp eyes. For a blissful moment there’s nothing in his head but chasing that stinging pleasure and then - pressure. His feet scramble at the bunk for leverage he can’t find, even as his knees bend and part and spread.

The pressure, that firm hand locked back around his throat, eases as Lance settles atop his chest. Keith blinks up, legs slowly falling slack as Lance shifts to simply cup his neck, at the boy hovering above his chest. Lance gazes back at him, unwavering, all previous signs of shyness and shame evaporated off his person. He looks entranced, moonstruck, like his world had narrowed down to nothing more than Keith’s pleasure. His eyes roved over Keith’s face once more, something more desperate than hunger, more dangerous than unslaked thirst, causing the other to scan the man beneath him for every detail. He rubs his thumbs against Lance’s ankle bones, watching as each little shiver made the erection hovering in front of his face twitch and dance. He does his best to not stare, not willing to risk breaking whatever courage has possessed Lance. He bends his fingers, feels the coarse hairs catch and drag under the pad of his fingers, his nails, and breaths out, watching as Lance unconsciously does the same. Keith flips his hands over, presses his palms mattress and slides them beneath Lance’s legs, humming as the other jolts before slowly easing back down.

He wiggles his fingers into the covers, pleasure zipping up through his arms as he shifts and presses and feels the other press _back;_ strength coiling through Lance’s long legs, each movement primed with the intent to keep Keith _right there_ . He flexes again, testing, for what he’s not sure, somewhat dissatisfied as Lance rocks gently above him with the motion. He touches his tongue to his bottom lip, flattening his fingers and falling still; _letting_ Lance’s weight press him further into the bunk. It should be reassuring. He wasn’t _really_ trapped, he could throw the other off if he felt the nee- thoughts fizzled into nothingness, brain swamped in a syrupy fizzle of static.

Soft fingertips pull away from his throat.

A whine spills between parted lips, unbidden and unsuppressed. Keith raises his head, pressing his chin down over the webbing between Lance’s thumb and pointer finger, trapping them beneath this chin. Little whimpers pulse his throat against the firm meridian. There wasn’t any pressure coercing him this time, just Keith; nudging his bared throat more firmly under that warm, seeking, hand. Each bump of pressure against the front sent sparks down his spine, fanning the embers in his core.

Lance thaws, nerves easing with every noise eked out of Keith’s throat. He hums, the same considering noise he made when he first twisted Keith’s plucked nipples. The half-galra has all of a tick to register the trend before Lance braces the remainder of his weight forward. Keith’s whine, _displeased and irritated at the lack of pressure on his arms and chest_ , strangles high. Lust a sharp lance through is core as Lance tangles his fingers through Keith’s hair, pinning him even further; loose strands made into a leash. The thought burns in his stomach, not the acidity of rage but the smouldering of unexpected pleasure.

Lance gives the hair tangled in his fingers a gentle tug.

Keith’s toes curl into the sheets, air escaping his lungs in open-mouthed pants. He pulls his head to the side, chin still tucked to dig Lance’s thumb harder into his throat, just to see what Lance will do. The fingers, soft, calloused, _gentle_ , press inwards and then flutter away. Shy once more. He almost groans.

“Hey… have you not?” Lance trails off, making the last word a question.

Keith stares up at him, swallows around the pooling moisture in his mouth, hands twitching beneath Lance’s weight with the desire to just drag the idiot atop him where he wants him already.

“Not what?”

Lance, inexplicably, flushes. “N-not, you know, done this or…?”

Keith feels his expression drop, brows low and unimpressed. “Lance. I’ve been living alone on a space-whale with my mother for two years.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Now it was Keith’s turn to flush, “It was a small hut!”

“What does that mean?!”

“Shut up!”  
  
Lance dragged his hand out of Keith’s hair, shifting back on his chest more firmly. “Fine!”

“...”

“...”

The silence, of course, didn’t last.

“...What about at the Garrison?”

“What do you mean ‘at the Garrison’?”

Lance peeks down between his fingers, “I mean, you didn’t… with anyone then?”

Nonplussed, Keith cocked his head to the side (still doing his best to ignore Lance’s dick looming near his face. Was it just the angle making it look-) “Like who? People weren’t exactly lining up to be friends.”

For some reason that just made Lance whine louder, pained and childish and totally at odd with everything Keith wanted to already be happening right now. He sighs, smirking as Lance gave a full-body twitch at the heat wafting over his... He nearly goes crosseyed looking at the the erection hovering near his face. Dark like the rest of Lace and turning a mellow-pink as- damn, was that really only halfchub? Keith swallows, mouth suddenly too-wet; very sure about what he wants to do with it but not certain of how to go about actually starting.

He realizes Lance is _still talking_.

“Would you just shut up and-”

“Trust you?”

Keith blinks and pulls back as much as he’s able. That was… he didn’t expect Lance to remember that.

His thoughts, mostly concepts about memory and trust and wanting to just _get on_ with this, tangle around one another as he looks up into the softest smile he can recall seeing on the other’s face. His own brow wrinkles in confusion, habitual scowl sliding into place as a first line of defense. Soft hands reach down and smooth across his forehead, rub down the bridge of his nose, sweep along his cheeks, curl under his jaw. Keith presses his nose into Lance’s thigh and _breathes_.

Lance jolts, the tip of Keith’s cold nose unexpected and-

“What are you-”

Keith ignores the question, nuzzling forward, shifting closer to his target. Mind made up. If Lance wasn’t going to get with the program…

He shoots his tongue out, the tip just brushing along Lance’s cock. His eyes flutter shut, not sure if it’s the taste he’s enjoying ( _warm, skin, desire, nerves-and-thrill)_ or just the sense of _power_ the noise Lance just made gave him.

The tan boy exhales in a rush and bucks, chasing Keith’s mouth even as the taller let his head fall back in a pleasured moan, laughter suffusing the sound into one exhale of joy. Lance pants for a moment, staring down, eyes sharp and sure once more.

The hand around his throat, nearly forgotten, flexes.

Keith stares back, resolute. He presses the backs of his hands into the mattress. It’s an awkward position, he doesn’t have much leverage, but if he needs to for fucks sake he’ll just fli-

_Aahhaahnnn!_

“-be good?”

Keith’s eyes fluttered back open, eyes shifting between Lance’s intent face and now much closer dick. The hand on his throat was higher now, grip rubbing forcefully just behind his ear.  
His jaw has dropped open. That rough, giddy, sparking pressure making it so he didn’t want to (couldn’t) close it again. He feels a thin line of drool slip from the corner of his mouth.   
  
Oh.  
  
Seated where he was, Lance could probably feel the moan rumble through Keith’s chest before it slipped out his gaping mouth. Something about that, the weight and knowledge coupled with his own vocal vibrations, made the whole thing better.

The pressure on his scalp was back, shifting with Lance’s hand. Redistributing his weight and shifting his hips up, up, up, until -

Keith smirks and lifts his head as high as he can, upper abdominals curling in to lift his shoulders just a little off the bed, relishing the burn in his scalp and the pressure that remained across his arms and chest, until his lips close over the head of Lance’s cock.

He eases back to the mattress, pulling Lance with him. His smirk stretches his mouth further over his prize as the younger follows him down, hips struggling not to jerk forward even as Keith mouths and licks and sucks at everything he can reach. Lance bursts across his tongue, salty and dark-earthy and clean-skin; strange and more than enough encouragement on its own to warrant him flicking his tongue against the slit for more.   
A long whine breaks the air above him. Keith hums in pleasure as Lance gives in and rocks gently down. His jaw falls wider in increments, Lance shifting and blossoming ( _growing, of course, the show-off's a grower_ ) under his dedicated attention.

The pressure on his scalp was _fantastic_ but the thrusts were shallow. Lance mostly bouncing off the roof of his mouth, knocking uncomfortably against his teeth every now and then from the odd angle. The sensation of _not enough_ was similar enough to tracing his tongue over Lance’s canines that a frown pulls at his stretched lips. Keith shifts, trying to work Lance lower down his body, but ends up thrashing against the other’s hold for real as Lance’s hands first pinwheeled away and then slammed down in effort to avoid falling off the bed.

“Oh shi-”

One hand forced his head back, tipping his chin up, Lance’s palm a burning warmth near his scalp. The other, maybe just out of habit, crashed back between them - pressing _almost_ too close to Keith’s throat. HIs eyes rolled back in his head, the sudden yank backwards with the tease of pressure near his bared throat struck right down his spine. Lance’s yipped apology drowned out as everything in him contracted and relaxed at once.

They broke apart, breathing heavily for different reasons.

Lance shakes himself out of it, adrenalin fading first. He pats gently at Keith’s face, shifting backwards as the other stirred until his legs slid off Keith’s arms.

“Woah… hey, hey, are you?”

Keith blinked slowly up at him, eyes closing and opening in long, slow, lash laden passes. Lance bit down on a smile as the other turns and presses his nose to inside of Lance’s wrist.

 _Geez, he is_ such _a ca-_ “H-hey!”

Keith grumbles as Lance bats at his hands, still trying to drag the other back up his chest. He watches, purple eyes lidded, as the aborted movement sends the other’s dick bobbing up against his stomach. It’s full and leaking and sending spasms through the other’s clenching stomach and tight thighs with every bounce and twitch. He leans forward, trying to reach for him with his mouth again, only for Lance to catch his face between his palms.  
Keith’s brows draw together, expressing his disappointment through a squished scowl ( it isn’t a pout ) as Lance looks down at the dazed now-twenty-year-old trapped beneath his weight and caught between the palms of his self manicured hands. After a moment, he seems to come to some sort of realization.  
  
“This isn’t gonna work.”  
  
There isn’t time for Keith’s stomach to finish its downward swoop of paranoia.  
  
Lance dismounts Keith’s chest, ignoring how the larger paws weakly at this calves and thighs, to stand at the edge of the bed.   
He waits there, patient and still in ways he never is without a rifle in his hands (the hands that were just wrapped around Keith’s face, wrapped around his throat, fingering his pulsepoint like a trigger-) until he finally clicks his tongue and tugs on Keith’s broad shoulders.

After a few moments of stubborn, confused, resilience Lance moves both hands to other’s tangled hair and yanks. Keith yowls, teeth bared in a pleasure-pained hiss even as he shifts willingly in place. Under Lance’s hands he braces his feet against the wall, knees bent up over his hips, and cautiously hangs his head down off the mattress.  
  
He blinks up at Lance, teeth still bared, breathless and now confused.  
  
What was this going to help with?

His eyes refocus, nearly crossing, as Lance curls tan fingers around his own dick, still shiny with precum and Keith’s drool, and guides it back home. The difference in angle is immediate. Lance’s girth presses Keith’s tongue up against his jaw, thick length sliding in and in and in until, dizzyingly easy, he twitched in the back of Keith’s throat.

The burn fades quickly, Keith’s mind more preoccupied with the weight and the slow ache in his jaw unfolding like a flower in the sun than any inconvenience. Besides, Lance is moving slow and sweet and just enough to stir a hum out of him on his next exhale.

Lance moans, long and low, pricking at Keith’s ears. Something in the sound ringing perfectly through the air between them as he draws his hips gently away.

Upside down, belly and chest bared completely, knees spread open and up- Keith’s head spun. He wasn’t sure it had anything to do with the effort and difficulty of breathing through his nose.

Each breath in squeezes the sides of his throat around that hot cock, doubling the pressure, the sense of being held open, held down, _used_. He reaches back with a whine as Lance draws his hips back again all too soon, cock sliding away from his chasing mouth. He presses his lips shut, catching the flared head, tasting the sudden spurt of precome as Lance twitches against the seal of his mouth.

They stared at each other, gazes locked despite Lance’s cock hanging between them and the odd angle. Keith narrowed his eyes, glaring as best he was able while upside down, and then- _mmrrrrrrrrh-_ Lance nods and eases forward.

The slow, smooth stretch of his throat sends heat washing through Keith’s core. His hips twitch, rocking his knees and jolting his feet against the wall with a soft _pap!_

Breath rushes through him as Lance withdraws and the cycle repeats. Smooth and sweet and enough to make Keith’s eyes water. Or maybe the was the blood rushing to his head.

He blinks through the gentle tears, unconcerned by them. The hold seems darker, somehow. It’s an idle thought there and then lost as Lance slowly rocks in and out of his mouth, his tongue and teeth and the cushioned pad of his throat adjusting to the size and stretch but not the _tastesensationwarmth_ that floods him with each return.

It’s foreign and familiar and he can’t help but chase after it, locking his tongue and cheeks around what he can, hands catching on Lance’s smooth skin. He’s just started experimenting with swallowing, not as easy as it sounds with his mouth, with his _throat,_ this full, when Lance stills, halfway out of Keith’s hungry clutch.

Keith grumbles, just about done with this start-stopping pattern the younger’s locked them in. Lance though, what little of his face Keith can see, seems torn between rapture and some weird sort of self flagellation.

“Ah, sorry… I’m not,” he takes a breath and shifts his hands, “doing this right.”

He doesn’t have time to consider what that could mean.

Warm fingers pluck at his nipples and Keith vaguely registers the feeling of cold metal under his feet as he bucks and thrashes into the sensation. He groans, or chokes, or maybe screams, throat clamping down, sound trapped between his chest and Lance’s dick.

Something guttural rumbles out of Lance at the vibrations. His fingers tighten, pulling at Keith’s nipples in flinching jerks of sensation, sensitive buds rolled between gun-calluses. His back arches, feet scrabbling at the wall for purchase even as he feels himself slide towards the ground, gravity forcing him further along Lance’s length.

He heaves in air, vision flashing red and black as those same hands catch his shoulders and shift him back up the bed.

He flails a hand back, reaching blindly, and digs into the soft side of Lance’s flank, ignoring the other’s yelping moan as he’s forcibly returned to Keith’s shaking throat. He scratches and pinches until Lance gets with the program, pinching back lightly along his abused chest as his hips snap forward, until he’s fucking the older paladin’s throat in earnest.

Purples eyes water and roll back, blind to everything but the pulsing cock forcing him open. The heavy weight sliding in and out of him with a wet, obscene, _click_ . His tongue laves weakly at the weeping head, tip gliding down the length as it thrust in and out of him. Chasing it as it left, welcoming it as it returned. The salt and scent and heat making his head spin with _more more more-!_

Warm hands slide up his chest, nails a teasing drag of soft pressure along his belly, ribs, nipples, as Lance draws his hips backwards in a slow retreat. Long fingers curl in his hair and cradle his skull.

His words are low, the softest Keith has heard him speak, “Is this… is this better?”

There’s something in his voice, something he should know- something he’s heard before but- Keith can’t quite focus. Blood caught and trapped in both his heads making him dizzy and _why_ is Lance all the way over _there_.

He sits up as best he can from the awkward position, chasing after Lance with his mouth.

He doesn’t trust his voice right now, not sure he’s quite ready to hear what he sounds like after Lance has been in his throat.

(He doesn’t notice the hold seems brighter. Doesn’t know his eyes have started to glow again, pupils slitted and then blown almost round with arousal- an attractive oval that leaves glints of purple shining into the dark and almost-quiet of the Red Lion’s hold.)   
Lance’s cock bounces in the colder air, enticingly flushed and still wet with Keith’s spit. It leaves a trail along the other’s flat stomach. Purple eyes follow it and Lance, for some reason, shys back as he catches sight of Keith staring. The tan boy hunches in on himself, like he’s embarrassed, like he’s bracing for some sort of blow.  
  
Keith smirks, amused at his own thoughts. He reaches back and grabs him again, fingers sinking into Lance’s ass as he drags him forward. Lance stumbles and Keith can’t help the gravely laugh that falls out of him, the image too bizarre from his upside-down view.  
  
He doesn’t wait for whatever Lance’s reaction to that will be. He lets go of Lance’s ass with one hand to grab for that bobbing dick, pulling it back down within reach. The flared head slips into his mouth easily, the spread of it against his lips a fun weight. It’s a weird contrast, the slight chill from his lingeringly wet mouth and the natural heat of Lance’s blood warming further inside him. He doesn’t move any further, just drops one hand to brace against the ledge of the bed while the other keeps a firm grip on Lance’s hip.  
  
The tip rests in the seal of Keith’s lips, flared head trapped more securely this time. He huffs an exhale harshly through his nose and does his best to glare, ignoring the watering of his eyes and drool coating his face.  
  
Lance’s head drops low with a groan, hips swiveling gently back against Keith’s resolve. He tugs back, once, twice, and Keith presses lip covered teeth down as hard as he dared, refusing to let Lance leave.  
  
“G-Guess I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” a smirk starts to curl the tanned boy’s lips. He opens his mouth again and Keith decides he doesn’t care to hear whatever is about to spill out. He grins, upside down and vicious, and finally lets his teeth drag along the sensitive, flared, glands.  
  
Lance yelps. There’s a flail of limbs and then fingers dig and twist into his hair, forcing his head down against the side of the mattress. He presses his foot more firmly against the wall, tightening his core in effort to stay balanced on the too-small bunk. Keith hums, a savage sort of contentedness burbling in him as Lance thrashes against the sensations.  
  
There’s something satisfying in this. In the stretch of his jaw and the weight on his tongue. Blood-warm and salty and _powerful_.  
He has Lance exactly where he wants him.  
  
The thought swims through his mind, circling and circling until that’s all that’s left.  
  
_Lance_.   
  
In reach, under his fingers, close enough for his breath to hit skin, close enough to _taste_. To hold, to feel, to-  
  
The first slide forward rattles a noise loose. Long and low and muffled and, thankfully, drowned out by the ensuing groan that spills from Lance as he doubles over Keith’s body like he’d struck him anyway.   
  
Those soft hands, firm and warm and calloused in the strangest places, slide through his hair, past his eyes over his cheeks and over his throat. They pet at the skin there, softly and gently. Not adding any pressure but sure as hell feeling the shift in Keith’s adam’s apple, stuffed full as his throat was. They dance lightly over his skin, firm enough not to tickle light enough to leave his body twitching for more. Each pass, swipe, circle sends shocks of pleasure down Keith’s core. Leave him hiccupping for air against the smooth, _slow so so slow again_ , slides forward and back. In and out.   
  
He growls impatiently, smirking as Lance’s rhythm judders and kicks as the vibrations rattle a corresponding noise out of the tan boy holding onto him like a lifeline. He gives the retreating head a broad lick, “Hurry up”, and pulls him back in, digging his nails in this time - forcing Lance to move faster. To move at his pace.

The _whatever_ -paladin resisted for half a beat before giving in and following Keith’s lead. Lance’s hands brace against his ribs as he thrusts back down Keith’s throat, muffling his cries as the other obligingly picks up the pace. Satisfaction curls through Keith, warm and stoked with every rabbit-fast movement above him.

Those long fingers feel like they’re everywhere; raking down his chest, tracing his heaving abdominals, petting at his stuffed throat and hollowing cheeks on the beat of his thrusts. Lance is hardly leaving his throat, now, spare hand shifting from cradling his head to curling fingers around him, fondling his pulse point and petting that electric spot behind his ear. Keith wonders, a rush of heat flushing through him at the thought, if Lance can feel himself through Keith’s esophagus.

All he can see is tan skin, the beating of both their hearts, the rhythm pulsing in his mouth, jaw, throat, blocking out all the noise in his head.

Keith’s breath catches in his chest, trapped, as Lance leans forward. He slips impossibly further, _deeper_ , as his warm body presses over Keith’s. He feels Lance shuffle a half step forward and then-

A hand clasps around his dick, foreskin trapped and pulled, thumb pressing firmly against his crown and he swears Lance swells somehow _bigger,_ thickening up in his mouth... it’s a hot rush of too much, just right, _more-more-more_ -

* * *

He comes to. Again.

His entire face feels damp, but not with drool or... he’s clean. He’s curled on his side, which is how he always wakes up no matter how he tries to fall asleep, back to the wall of the room.

Keith blinks into the low light, feeling like he should be more alert, on edge, than he can even consider much less muster. He’s warm. Blanket stretched and trapped under his feet, an odd courtesy given how much taller he’s gotten.

Keith’s head rises and falls with the swell of air into the chest beneath his head. He shifts, taking in the dusty nipples and broadening shoulder beneath him. Plucked eyebrows scrunch down as a deep grumble shakes through Lance’s chest, through Keith as he lays there in the dark and the warmth and the- his head rises up, thought sluggishly starting to filter back in.

A warm hand reaches up to pat clumsily through his hair, “S’fine. We good. S’okay…” The hand falls lax, palm lying heavy over the curve of his skull. He eases back down, cheek to chest.

Inhale, rise, exhale. Inhale, rise, exhale.

Keith’s eyes drift shut.

He sleeps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Expect more from this verse. There are notes for this thing now *bangs head against desk*


	3. Galra Thing Deleted(?) Scene

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deleted Scene from before. A concept I’m still fiddling with but like too much to ignore…
> 
> Inspired largely by Methoxyethane

...

Those long fingers feel like they’re everywhere; raking down his chest, tracing his heaving abdominals, petting at his stuffed throat and hollowing cheeks on the beat of his thrusts. Lance is hardly leaving his throat, now, spare hand shifting from cradling his head to curling fingers around him, fondling his pulse point and petting that electric spot behind his ear. Keith wonders, a rush of heat flushing through him at the thought, if Lance can feel himself through Keith’s esophagus. 

All he can see is tan skin, the beating of both their hearts, the rhythm pulsing in his mouth, jaw, throat, blocking out all the noise in his head. 

Keith’s breath catches in his chest, trapped, as Lance leans forward. He slips impossibly further,  _ deeper _ , as his warm body presses over Keith’s. He feels Lance shuffle a half step forward and then-

A hand clasps around his dick, foreskin trapped and pulled, thumb pressing firmly against his crown and he swears Lance swells somehow  _ bigger, _ thickening up in his mouth... it’s a hot rush of too much, just right, _ more-more-more _ \- 

* * *

Lance sighs peacefully as he drops his shirt back to the floor. The black haired boy - man’s?- face is slack in sleep. Peaceful for maybe the first time Lance has ever seen… not counting the odd little power nap he tripped into earlier. Lance ducks his head and smiles, something warm curling and circling in his chest.

The smile shifts into a frown because, huh, there’s still a wet patch under Keith despite his careful cleaning. It… didn’t come from the half-galra’s orgasm, which had splattered all over his chest  _ twice _ (the comment about it being a  _ very small hut  _ made a bit more sense now that Lance had the brainpower to think on it), so what soaked the bed beneath him? 

Lance reaches down, blaming his post-orgasmic haze for his curiosity winning out over caution, and runs his fingers through it. It’s viscous and clear and somewhat warm. He traces it up Keith’s thighs, fingers sliding easily over pale skin, to tap right against his entrance.

Lance jerks, startled as his middle fingertips right into the fluttering rim, not quite breaching but also not needing any pressure to slide just between the flushed furl. He swallows. Breath hitching. He can feel Keith’s pulse beneath his fingertips… 

_ What the _ -

He leans forward, for a closer look, and as he does his finger breaches the rim, sliding in effortlessly. The same slick fluid slowly beads out around his digit, wetting his resting pointer finger until it too nudges the sleeping boy’s entrance. 

Lance has maybe half a heartbeat to be confused, aroused, and conflicted before Keith snuffles and  _ pushes back _ into him,  _ onto _ him, and Lance’s middle finger slides right up to the first knuckle in an effortless glide. His pointer finger pokes in with the same moment and whatever caused it, the near full breach or the pressure placed on his rim by the second finger, has Keith whining in little panting breaths, hips rolling towards him like- like he was trying to get those fingers further in. 

It - it, well, it breaks Lance’s mind a little. He’s inside  _ Keith.  _ Keith is  _ warm _ and  _ soft _ and  _ slick _ and he can feel Keith’s heartbeat - the pulse strong and firm and almost echoing all the way back into Lance’s forearm. He wonders if Keith,  _ somehow still sound asleep what the cheese _ , can feel his heartbeat (which feels loud enough to shake the hold but luckily not his hands). The ring around Lance’s fingers seems to pulse in time with Keith’s breathing and then  _ again _ with his beating heart, pulling him deeper, coaxing him forward and his fingers slip further in with hardly any pressur- Keith  _ shifts backward _ towards him and then his fingers really  _ do _ rock forward, deeper into that clutching soft heat. A satisfied noise rumbles out from the paladin half beneath him and- Lance shakes his head from side to side violently.

A shrill whisper leaves his mouth, “No! No, no, no, no,” he shuffles to his knees and plants his now free hand on Keith’s damp rump, “Wait, wait,  _ Keith _ ,” 

Keith does not wait, impatient even in sleep. Lance pulls his fingers back, torn between lustful satisfaction and concerned frustration as Keith  _ chases his fingers, _ never quite letting them pull out. 

“Sleepy Keith can’t consent,” Lance hisses under his breath, not quite sure who he was speaking to, “Work with me here, sleepy Keith!” 

With one last burst of willpower, Lance pressed Keith further into the mattress and yanked his now soaked fingers up and out. He sat for a moment, the silence only interrupted by their panting breaths and Keith’s muffled whines, staring at his raised hand. His fingers glinted in the low artificial light as the syrupy liquid dripped down towards his wrist. 

Lance let out a sigh and glared at his recovering erection as he leaned back off the bed to recover his dirty shirt.  _ Aliens _ . He hisses as the movement shifts his dick against Keith’s prone form. He muttered down at it, “You stay out of this.”, and started to wipe down whatever it was Keith had going on back there. If he was especially careful of his fingers, well, that was his business. 

Definitely _ a galran thing…  _

* * *

He comes to. Again.

His entire face feels damp, but not with drool or... he’s clean. He’s curled on his side, which is how he always wakes up no matter how he tries to fall asleep, back to the wall of the room.

Keith blinks into the low light, feeling like he should be more alert, on edge, than he can even consider much less muster. He’s warm. Blanket stretched and trapped under his feet, an odd courtesy given how much taller he’s gotten.

Keith’s head rises and falls with the swell of air into the chest beneath his head. He shifts, taking in the dusty nipples and broadening shoulder beneath him. Plucked eyebrows scrunch down as a deep grumble shakes through Lance’s chest, through Keith as he lays there in the dark and the warmth and the- his head rises up, thought sluggishly starting to filter back in. 

A warm hand reaches up to pat clumsily through his hair, “S’fine. We good. S’okay…” The hand falls lax, palm lying heavy over the curve of his skull. He eases back down, cheek to chest. 

Inhale, rise, exhale. Inhale, rise, exhale. 

Keith’s eyes drift shut. 

He sleeps.

END


	4. A Galra Thing Ch2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was supposed to be a smut fic but then I caught feels. Also I’m a giant nerd and I will always be sad that Coran did not attempt to adopt Lance / was not adopted in turn by the McClain clan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'm gonna make this series it's own thing and give some actual time to it? IDK I kind of like being able to write whatever and not fuss over it too badly.  
> Let me know what y'all think.

Keith wakes suddenly.

It’s the only way he knows how to sleep, dead to the world one moment and on edge the next. To say that he’s alarmed when he fails to launch himself upright would be an understatement. There’s a warm weight across his shoulders, dragging low into the valley of his waist, not quite restaining but heavy enough to stall his immediate leap upwards. The pillow beneath his head shifts and swells and it hits Keith suddenly that it’s not a pillow at all.

He stills, body, mind and breath all shocked in realization and flashing recollection. He can feel his face heating up as memory trickles in alongside the dawning soreness of his throat.

He swallows around the ache, feels the bruises press back against the motion in a rolling swell of tingling heat. Another part of him begins to stiffen too.

Lance, almost in sheer contrast, wakes slowly. His lashes flutter, blue eyes slipping into view with languid blinks and easy breaths. A contented sigh slips between his lips, limbs stretching, shaking off the dust of sleep with each twitch. 

His head lolls to the side eyes drinking in Keith’s face with none of the shock or surprise he anticipated.

A few ticks pass, Keith feels his spine unwind in increments. Hesitantly, he places his hands back down, lowering his guard physically. 

Making the effort. 

Blue eyes glimmer in the still dim hold before blowing wide. Lance takes a sharp breath in - and then dives under the covers.

_Seriously?_

Exasperation and something more jagged, something painfully close to _hurt,_ burbles inside Keith.

“Lance,” He says and then winces. His voice… isn’t quite as bad as he’d feared.

He’s definitely hoarse.

The vibrations echo outward, bouncing off his throat and the cold metal walls of Red’s ribs. They run down his spine, patter across the gentle bruises on his arms, remind him _exactly_ what they’d been doing the night before. He feels himself flush at the throaty echo of his voice. 

He feathers a few fingers over his throat, wonders if he’ll have any marks, any warm-dark patches he can feel beneath the pads of his fingers, that’ll press, constantly, against the high collar of the mamoran suit he’d yet to replace. 

His pulse is racing.

Okay, so maybe there _was_ some sense in hiDING- 

The yelp that bursts out of him would be embarrassing if it wasn’t also entirely justified. 

Keith’s hands tear into the mattress, struggling to keep his legs still in effort to _not_ give the horrible, wonderful, moron between them a concussion as thanks for the surprise blowjob he’s apparently being given this fine morning.

Lance, unseen, ducks lower - or at least Keith assumes he does because more and more of him is disappearing into the _hot soft wet_ that’s steadily chewing away at his remaining brain cells. He sucks in a deep breath, feels his stomach pull tighter, ribs press out and away and counts. _One. Two. Thr-_

Long fingers curl over his hips, pressing him down. 

Whatever it was that marshalled his thoughts shatters. He feels more than hears the noise, all that caught breath ripping out of him. 

There’s a wild, oddly coherent moment, wherein he feels a strong sense of affirmation because he just _knew Lance’s mouth was good for som-_

Vibrations rocket through Keith’s pelvis. It takes his scrambled brain a few ticks to put together that Lance is humming around him. 

He keens, breathless, something about the sensation bursting through him. The way Lance’s fingers are pressing bruises into his hips and thighs, maybe. In how the other is doing this without question - like it was normal, like it’s something he _wants_ \- sets his head spinning. 

He’s flat on his back, not sure when his head hit the mattress but grateful for the comfort. His teeth sink into the corner of the nearest case of fluff, tongue worrying at a circular zipper as his jaw almost grinds with the effort of letting Lance’s hands still his hips. Blunt nails bite into his skin, pressing bruises into life and it would be so _easy_ to just thrust forward and force those fingers deep-

An arm slams over his pelvis, warm and solid and heavy, when those fingers prove to be insufficient one smothered laugh later.

His thighs flex, trapped ears pressing into unguarded flesh and if his eyes weren’t busy spelunking the back of his skull he’d be gratified that the laughter turned to moaning. 

But they were, so instead he feels his toes uncurl and point helplessly as the vibrations increase, Lance’s tongue rattling around now, an honest-to-god rumble audible from beneath the covers and- and- 

* * *

Lance is entirely too smug when Keith’s spirit renters his body.

“Good morning,” 

The halfling swats clumsily at the smug voice between his legs. The half hearted strike goes wide as that damn tongue swipes over him. A noise strangles past his control, hoarse voice and tingling limbs rendering it totally impossible to tell if it’d been closer to ‘good morning’ or ‘fuck off’. 

Whatever it was, it just made Lance laugh and bounce out of bed, taking the covers with him the absolute bastard. Keith groans and lets the idiot ( _his_ idiot?) shuffle away in a be-toga’d victory dance, toes still curled in simmering ecstasy. There’s a hiss of water through pipes and a noisy clatter that he pointedly refuses to open his eyes for as he lays there and attempts to bask in whatever the hell this bone-deep lassitude was. 

Lance had been so _good_. It felt like it’d taken no time at all. And while he certainly didn’t hear any complaints about his own attempt (and certainly had none of his own) it made him conscious of the differences between the two. 

“I wonder what Hunk’s whipped up for breakfast.” Lance’s voice echoes through the doorless partition, heedless of the sparks in Keith’s blood. There’s a clatter of dropped armor, the noise no more relevant than whatever else Lance is saying. “Hey, do you think the mice help him? Like in _Ratatouille?_ Man, that’d be weird.”

Keith hums noncommittally as his brain circles around, chasing itself into knots. 

Lance peeks around the corner at that noncommittal growl. Sees Keith’s brain overheating - sees a lot more than that, actually. It takes a moment to process- well, everything. Last night, this morning. Keith, laying belly bared and thighs just covered by the still rucked blanket, spread vulnerable and still a bit dazed in _Lance_ ’s bed.

It chokes the air in his lungs, locks his legs, sends a pins and needles tickle from his wrists through his palms with the bone deep desire to finger comb out the knots in those inky locks. 

He lets the dropped boot’s brother fall to the ground. Lets the pull in the back of his navel, his brain, his _chest_ tug him back towards the bed. 

“Hey…”

* * *

Lance smiles down at him, wide eyed and breathless.

It’s... a little awkward, but Keith is feeling _good_. Warm. More relaxed than he has been in… years, likely, and if that means he has to stare sideways just to keep this peace? To avoid the multitude of burning, future problems he can already see cropping up ahead?

He’s done harder things for less. 

And this, he thinks as Lance slows to stand at the bunkside, isn’t as without value as he’d thought.

Too-big hands hesitate, a single stutter from pointy elbows through to tapered wrists, for just a second before gently swooping low.

The warm palms linger just above his skin. Just enough to raise blood to Keith’s face as he holds his breath. 

Untouched, but caught. Still, but unafraid. 

Lance looks the same. Trapped and wanting and the touch of soft fingertips feels like breaking through the surface of still water. They rub gently into his scalp, twisting this way and that against the grain of his hair. 

“So…” Lance lets it trail off into silence, tugging a little at Keith’s hair to keep his attention. Keith smiles, swatting half-heartedly as the tugging continues. “A ‘small hut’, huh?”

“Oh, hell,” the older finally gives in and laughs. “Yeah.” Keith paused and rolled onto his side, looking up at Lance. “It was _actually_ a hut. We built it out of these bushes and-”

* * *

They end up talking for far too long. Lance made for an… interesting audience.

On the one hand, it was nice to know he was paying attention. On the other Keith felt like it took twice as long to explain _anything_ because the other kept interrupting him over the weirdest details. 

The pair of them jumped, Lance crashing to the floor with a _thud_ , as something in the corner buzzed out an irritated rhythm. 

“Shit!”

Keith swung out of bed, scrambling for his crumpled suit. 

“Shit! I’m-”

He cursed as the chestplate activated and his hair got stuck in it _again_ , that _always_ happ- and caught his breath as nimble fingers slowly slid the armor over his shoulders until it _clicked_ into place. Lance stared, fingers absently combing through Keith’s hair before sliding down his chest to rest near the other’s hips. 

“...Hi.”

“Hi,” he echoed, quiet and soft again. All the racing thoughts in his head slowing down with every slow circle of Lance’s thumbs against his hips. His breathing evened out and soon, way too soon, Lance stepped back and away. Keith blinked into the smug little grin on Lance’s face, still muddled by the onset of clarity that had cut through his usual adrenal response.

“What’s the rush?” Lance whispered, lips almost touching Keith’s. “Can’t exactly go anywh-” _SHING!_ “-ere.” Keith and Lance turned to stare at the sleepy looking wolf now perched on Lance’s bed. 

Lance groaned, “Aw, come on!”, and Keith couldn’t help the chuckle that broke free. 

“The universe loves proving you wrong, doesn’t it?” 

Lance shook his head and snapped his fingers imperiously at the cosmic wolf sniffing at his pillow. “Down! Hey, fluffy!” 

Keith rolled his eyes. Kosmo wasn’t exactly the most house-broken -

“Kosmo, _down_.” 

\- creature… or, hell, maybe Keith just wasn’t the most experienced pet owner. He watched in mute disbelief as the wolf hopped neatly off the bed and trotted over to Lance’s feet.

“How’d you do that?”

“Huh?” Lance turned away from distributing rewarding pats to look up at Keith in confusion. “What, get him off the bed? It’s not that hard… I mean, Gata was _way_ more stubborn. I swear, she lived up to her name more than we ever wanted her to.” 

Which sounded like a good launch point for comparing pet tips but, “...doesn't that mean ‘cat’?”

Lance huffed, oddly defensive. “She was a ratter for the barn.” 

“You named her, didn’t you.” 

Keith laughed as Lance flailed in gibbering outrage before cracking up as the younger grabbed his shoulders, spun him, and started pushing him towards the cockpit. Keith leaned confidently back into those broad palms, feet skidding across the smooth metal.

“Get out of my Lion!”

* * *

Returning to Black is… less awkward than he expects. He and Lance must have woke earlier than he’d thought (still hard to keep track of time without a sun in the area) because Shiro was still snoring when Kosmo landed. Krolia, he knew, was well aware he’d been out. There really wasn’t any sneaking around, teleporting wolf or no, in such close quarters to begin with. 

Out-sneaking his mother, the undercover Blade? Even less possible. 

She hadn’t, however, commented on his absence. She’d just given him a long look as he settled in Black’s chair before issuing her usual, somewhat stilted, morning greeting. Neither of them were good at small talk but the silence was comfortable. 

Keith tucked his cleaned blade away, watching with a measure of satisfaction as the comms slowly flicker and fill with life as Black pings the other four lions. 

Pidge has overslept, likely from a too-late not-night again. Insomnia or curiosity or some side project keeping them up far past the agreed upon sleep cycle. Their hair sticks up in comical angles and even though the smaller viewscreen Keith can make out the imprint of computer keys checkered across their cheek. 

Hunk’s laughter booms down the line, warm and familiar, as he teases Pidge and bundles up breakfast into Kosmo’s basket. Somewhere behind him Shiro has started to gargle and Allura winces as the mice tug a strand of hair too sharply in their attempt to form some sort of side braid. Keith closes his eyes and lets it wash over him. 

Lance is quiet again, even though his window opened first. It still strikes him as off, Lance letting go an attempt to rib Pidge for her dark circles. How he stays silent as Allura mutters instructions to the mice, clearly trying to organize the attempted hair-style session while nibbling at something that looks suspiciously like an early-delivered breakfast. He palms the small braid he’d found woven close to the back of his neck and wonders when Lance’d stitched it together. If it’d been this morning or sometime in the night. 

There’s a loud _oof_ from the Red Lion’s line and Keith bites back a laugh as Kosmo presses his nose as close to the camera as he can manage, all 86 pounds of him teleported and planted squarely in Lance’s lap. 

“Ack- Hey! Kos-stop, ugh-Kosmo!” 

Hunk laughs as Kosmo wiggles himself around to lick a long stripe up Lance’s face.

“Aww, buddy! He likes you!”

Lance plants a large hand around Kosmo’s muzzle and Keith can feel himself flinch, waiting for the obligatory flash of teeth. The wolf’s lips curl in displeasure, snout wrinkling dangerously under Lance’s palm. Neither Keith nor Kosmo expect Lance to tighten his grip for a moment to give the wolf a light shake. Quick as that, Lance slides his hand up the wolf’s face to scratch deep into the ruff behind his ears. Kosmo leans back, stunned, clearly torn between snapping at the indignity and leaning deeper into the pets. Hedonism must win out because the grumbling noise shifts into happy-panting and before long the long blue furred tail starts to blur before the camera as Lance attempts to sneak his breakfast out of the basket between skritches. 

Keith lets out the baited breath he’d been holding. That’d been… stupid. Lance was clearly used to _dogs_ , and maybe with a family pet that move might’ve been fine. But with a _wolf?_

The idiot was lucky Kosmo was so even tempered. The tail _thocked_ against the camera and Lance yelped, fleeing his chair with his breakfast held high over his head with Kosmo in hot pursuit. Keith smiled wryly, fingers tucking the braid back into the mess of hair along his collar. Even tempered and fond of cuddles. So maybe the two deserve each other. 

* * *

Keith tightens his grip.

Lance lets out a wounded noise, head tucking into the hollow of Keith’s neck, hot breath fanning over his shoulder. He can... actually feel the other pulse in his hand, his fingers slipping away from one another as Lance _grows_ in his grasp. 

What. The fuck. 

There’s a full body flinch from the other that has nothing to do with pleasure. He can feel Lance trying to back away, but Keith literally has him by his cock. His hips jerk once before Keith steps forward and crushes him into the bulkhead. 

He slips his hand all the way down before pulling back towards the head. His elbow swings back over his hip before he’s finished. 

“This was in my _throat_?”

He’s not sure if his voice has gone husky in disbelief or desire. It’s mostly an odd mix of incredulity, at this entire situation, and… pride. 

It takes Lance a moment to respond, “Not… not all of it.”

Keith’s eyebrows rise even as his hand starts to speed up. Lance’s eyes flutter shut, shooting open again as Keith twists his grip tight just below the head before sliding back towards his pelvis. 

_“Ahh!”_

The soft exhale last for through the breath, sonorous and rich and… gone way too soon. Keith feels his brows twist along with his fingers. 

Huh.

* * *

There was something addictive about this. 

The weight in his throat, the little wet _click click click_ noises every time he took Lance deeper. The way every breath through his nose put pressure on his knees, reminding him that was where he was. On his knees, watching the twitch of Lance’s hips as he struggled and failed and recovered in holding himself back as he grew closer and closer to the edge with every push past Keith’s lips. 

Keith pulled back, rolling his tongue around the iliac furrow, eyes narrowed on those twitching hips and flexing stomach. They were the _only_ tell as to how close Lance ever was. 

It was infuriating. 

Lance _never_ shut up, so why would this be different? 

Honestly, Keith expected to need to muffle him within five minutes. But no, here he is struggling once again to mind his own noises while the loudest noise Lance has let out was the surprised wheeze when Keith slammed him against the wall. He pulls off, scowling as a very faint whine is the only response he gets.

“How the hell are you so quiet? You never shut up, what is this?” 

Lance startled, thrown either by the tone or the sudden conversation was anyone’s guess. 

“Um, we’ve been at a boarding school since we were twelve?” 

Alright, fair point. Still, “...what about when you went home?”

Lance stares at him, still incredulous, “I’m the youngest of six? It’s not like the house was ever empty. Trust me, you do _not_ want to get walked in on-”

Keith stops, stunned. “You have _five_ siblings?” He rocks back onto his heels and looks up at the cuban.

He’d known Lance loved his family, knew he missed them and knew he had at least one older sibling due to the mention of a niece… but five siblings? Five?! 

That was more family than Keith had ever considered. It didn’t sound possible. Just having his mother and Shiro around at the same time was… intense. He can’t imagine what a house with that many people would feel like. 

Lance, however, just shifts until Keith’s weight was cradled more easily across his lap. He starts ticking names off his fingers, ignoring his bound hands. “Yeah. Luis, Lisa, Veronica, Marco and Rachel.” 

Five people related to Lance. Christ, five Lances under one roof. No wonder he was so loud, what would that even sound like?

“Wh-When we get home,” The ‘o’ noise stretched into a quiet groan as Keith sucked the first couple of inches back into his mouth. “You should meet them.”

Keith took a breath through his nose and pretended that the flush of heat rushing through him was just due to Lance’s scent. 

* * *

It’s not all sex. 

Despite that second blow job... and the third, and the fourth and the- you know what, it was _fun_. You know how many fun things there were in Keith’s life? That made him feel good? So few.

Lance hadn’t said anything about it, other than a lot of praise and moans and, okay maybe he _had_ said something about it. But not about the frequency or the hot-need-now urgency of some of their beginnings, so Keith wasn’t about to stop. 

But it’s not, despite that, all sex. 

To Keith’s surprise, he finds himself spending most of his time with Lance. They’re arguing with Hunk and Pidge about pizza toppings or teaming up on Shiro and his weird opinions on synth-pop vs old rock. If he isn’t dropping into Red via Kosmo, then they’re talking quietly on the comms until one of them conks out. 

It’s the fourth, maybe fifth, time Lance has commed him too-late into the night when he realises he’s doing, has been doing, most of the talking. Lance still isn’t asking questions, per say. Hasn’t demanded the belated answers Keith once told him he didn’t have time for… but he’s not silent either. Despite the lack of prompting, Keith finds himself recounting how he met Krolia, their landing on the colony. Romelle and the awful, terrifying realisation of just what Lotor was. He doesn’t know how, or why, but Keith finds himself talking a little bit about before too. Before Voltron and, just the once when discussing constellations and campfires and how Lance was _so wrong_ about the best way to roast marshmallows, before the Garrison. It’s… nice. 

All of it. The talking, the reminiscing - He’d spent so long convinced that there was nothing left for him on earth and yet, seven minutes and three entirely stupid comments from Lance later he’s realized that he sort of, might actually, _miss_ parts of that round planet. Marshmallows and sunset and a gravity he can anticipate. Visiting his father’s grave, bringing wings from that one truck stop two exits before and telling the man about all the stars and simulators he’s seen. 

His mouth clicks shut over the last one. Teeth clacking together and eyes widening as his brain catches up. He braces himself for the worst. For pity or teasing or- Lance just… hums. Gives the smallest smile Keith’s seen from him, not smug or mean or- and talks about his grandfather. About bringing cempasuchitl to his grave when he was little and then, when he was older, the process of creating them from fabric or paper during his out-of-season visits. 

And then the moments that would feel out of control if they weren’t also so _right_. 

How it gets almost hectic, this clash between them. 

Despite all his assumptions to the contrary, Lance is a giving lover. Well, when Keith lets him have a chance. For the most part, there hasn’t been much need. Getting Lance off had the added benefit of lighting Keith’s nervous system up like a christmas tree. He barely needed a hand between his legs anymore. The last time, Lance had just tucked his shin between Keith’s bent thighs, pressed upwards just before he blew and _bam_ \- off Keith went. 

His reaction time is up. He’s, somehow, sleeping better. Even Shiro had noted that his appetite had increased back to human levels and, well, _hungry for dick_ sounded a little juvenile but… Keith sighed and rested his cheek on a fist, mouth feeling notably empty. 

Something about Lance was _just right_. 

How was he supposed to know?

* * *

It all came to a head sooner than he expected. 

“Wait, so all living things have quintessence?”

Allura nodded sagely, “Yes, it is the very essence of our beings. It is in and is emitted by all living things.”  
  
“So,” Pidge drawled, “It’s like the Force.”

Hunk snorted even as Romelle and Allura tilted their heads in confusion. The blonde glanced at her fellow alteans, “Can humans even _access_ their quintessence?”

“Well of course they can!”

The princess looked at her advisor. Coran twirled his mustache.

Pidge nudged her glasses higher, intrigued. “Yeah, Coran, how do you know?”

“Well, number five, the bayard forms have it!” 

Shiro leaned over Keith’s shoulder. “Sorry Coran, I don’t think I’m following.” 

“Hm… Ah!” The ginger altean snapped his fingers. “Take number four’s- hmm this is odd now that you’ve grown taller my boy…” He paused in his random swiping a moment and glowing images of Keith’s bayards sprung to life before them. “Ah, well, take his bayard for instance. Both the red and black bayards transform into swords for him. However, they’re quite basic in design and, if one looks closely, still retain physical similarities to the inactive bayard form itself.” 

Coran swipes at the air until a small image of Pidge’s bayard glowed in green before them. 

“Number five’s is similar in that it remains close to the inactive form in shape. The green bayard in number five’s hands, though, has demonstrated two different forms!” 

Pidge’s bayard shifted through it’s two forms and then crackled with electricity. 

“Unlike with number five’s, however, number four’s bayard exhibits no additional abilities.” Coran then swiped again and Hunk’s cannon appeared in glowing yellow. “Numer two’s, however, is far more sophisticated in its shape and in how it utilizes quintessence. Based off the readings, additional quintessence is required to form each bullet and blast. Which, having seen this form fire first hand, is quite a lot of quintessence! I suspect that the Lions are able to lend you paladins some of their own energy. Alfor designed the bayards with non-alteans in mind, after all. With the addition of number two’s turrets it’s quite the weapon!” 

“Finally Lance-”

“How come Lance gets to keep his name?” Hunk whispered in sotto to Pidge, who shrugged. 

“-has demonstrated the most mastery over his bayards and likely possess the most developed quintessence pools.”

Keith blinked, suddenly reinvested.

“Me?!”

He wasn’t the only one.

“Coran, what do you mean?”

The advisor once again painted broad strokes across the air with his hands until four images appeared, one glowing blue and three in bright red. 

Pidge squinted at the final image. “Is that a sword?” 

“Right you are, number five!” 

Two very different looking blasters, a sniper rifle, and what looked like a bastard sword hovered before them. That was… new. How long had Lance had access to a _sword?_

Keith shook his head. It couldn’t have been long. Lance still had all his fingers and, besides, this was the first he was hearing about it. There was no way _Lance_ would be able to keep something like this to himself. 

Pidge looked aside to Hunk. “How long has that been a thing?”

Hunk, however, looked dismayed. “Lance! How could you not tell me?” 

Lance looked aside, “I... look, it just never came up-”  
  
Hunk's dismayed look slid into a grin. “I mean, I knew you missed Keith but you didn’t have to go and summon a sword to feel closer to him! Wasn’t flying Red enough, buddy?”

Lance paled drastically and then flushed a ruddy red, flinching back into Red’s seat. 

“A few quintents, hasn’t it Princess?” Coran redirected, voice oddly cool. Hunk and Pidge’s attention snapped over to Allura, mouths open. 

She tilted her chin a little with a regal nod. “Lance and I have been practicing Altean standard forms for nearly two quintents.” There was a guilty pause as Allura tallied up time passed and where she had spent a majority of it. “Well, we were.” Pink eyes narrowed, “You kept up with the forms, I expect?” 

Lance hastened to assure her he had, he promised. 

Coran coughed and images of the blasters all fired simultaneously.

“Like number two, Lance’s bayard is capable of firing energy blasts. These ranged forms, however, are capable of various strengths, ranges, and all have complex forms. The Altean broadsword, also, is a multi edged weapon that shares no resemblance to the inert bayard form.”

“Huh, wonder why that is?” 

“Whether that’s due to flying two Lions or the reason _why_ he is able to pilot two Lions of Voltron is not something I can further speculate upon.” Coran shrugged. 

“Wait, if that’s the case, flying two Lions, then why is _Keith’s_ bayard so…” Pidge trailed off, eyes drifting towards Keith’s screen. 

Coran tapped a finger to his chin. “Likely due to his galran heritage. Galra were notoriously sensitive to quintessence, a side effect of their naturally small ‘reservoirs’ if you will.”

The advisor threw up a hand to halt the incoming questions. 

“Think of Alteans' quintential pools as lakes.” An image of Allura standing in a colossal, swirling pool. “Humans as possessing reservoirs.” Hunk and Pidge casting victory signs before of a large metal tank. “And Galra as... well,” an image of Krolia holding what looked like a shot glass slid into view. 

“Alteans were well known for large quintential reservoirs and a high number of quintessence nodes. It’s how our alchemists were able to manipulate quintessence and, indeed, how all of us are able to shape-shift.” The advisor flashed a multitude of colors. “Galra, however, had far fewer ports and most struggled greatly to move their quintessence.”

Coran stroked his mustache. “As far as I’ve been able to see, you lot have quintential potential equivalent to most young alteans… but you utterly lack any nodes at all. Thus you’re entirely unable to circulate or access your ‘Force’ as you call it!”

“That’s not how the Force works, Coran…”

“Through your connection to your lions, however, you are able to activate your bayards and utilize the power sleeping within you!” 

Lance’s bayard forms spun back into place. 

“King Alfor initially designed the bayards to combat this very problem…” The advisor shook himself, “Actually, thinking on it now, my boy, your ability to generate and manipulate internal quintessence to this extent is likely how you survived the radiation of the Omega Shield.” 

Keith felt his eyes flicker. “He what.”

Coran nodded, completely missing the wild and varying ‘cut-it-out’ gestures Lance and Allura were frantically miming. 

“Uh, Coran?” Hunk hesitated before pushing forward, “It sorta sounds like you’re telling us that Lance was _irradiated_ on that mission.” 

“Fatally, yes.” 

“He’s uh… still here?”

Coran stared down at Allura who, suddenly, was focusing on everything but the view screens.

“Yes, well…”

Keith listens, a growl growing in the back of his throat, as Lance and Allura attempt to gloss over the extent of the damage done. He can feel his temper start to flare, sparks clicking to life, as the conversation shifts over to Allura’s actions that day.

“ _That’s_ why you were outside of your Lion!?”

“Wait, wait.” Shiro held up both hands in the universal sign for ‘stop’, halting the slew of criticism for and defense of Allura’s choices. “Go back to the part where Lance _died_.” 

The conversation cut off, silence a knife stroke through their voices. 

Hazel and brown eyes swung towards Lance who had, Keith realized, remained silent. The blue-eyed boy crossed his arms and stared determinedly at a corner of Red’s control deck, refusing to look at any of them.

Keith’s gaze swung to land on Allura. 

Allura flustered under its weight. “He was very receptive to the quintessence transfer! He practically healed himself!” She shook her head, white hair flying every which way. “By the time we returned to the base’s meeting room, there wasn’t any damage left for a pod to heal.”

“And this just… _never came up?_ ” Keith pitched his voice, almost mockingly similar to how none of them had known about Lance’s newest bayard form either. 

He felt it was telling that Shiro made no attempt to admonish or rein him in. 

Between Shiro and his combined glares, Allura’s reluctance to meet anyone’s gaze and Lance’s continuing silence it gets quiet over the comms real quick. 

(No one pays Romelle’s muttered questions any mind.)

“So…” Pidge drawled into the tense silence. “There aren’t any quintessence points, ports, whatever's in humans either?”

Coran sighed, “We’ve yet to find one, at any rate.” 

Keith felt his eyes widen, a strange idea suddenly occurring. Memories of a very particular rush of sensation, his recent increase in energy, Lance's increasing stamina and the strange, empty ache that was even now starting to ring through him. The halfling resolutely did _not_ cast a glance to where Lance was suddenly, and to an outsider likely inexplicably, flushing a slowly glowing red. 

_...We might have just found one._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am slamming that slept on concept “Keith can sense auras/quintessences” into a porny, porny mattress.  
> Long short? Keith is really really enjoying blowing Lance because that high-qual/dense quintessence leaks out whenever Lance has an orgasm… and because Humans don’t really have any appropriate channels, it’s quite literally being expelled in the blue/red paladin’s cum.  
> So. Keith’s odd taste isn’t quite so incomprehensible…  
> Also, this isn’t done just yet. There are a couple more scenes scribbled.


	5. Bad JuJu Ch2 of A Galra Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> DRAMA BAD JUJU VERSION [aka the thing I wrote that I loathe and won’t endorse so if this were a proper fic at all it wouldn’t exist but also I did write it so here it is]  
> Literally not what anyone wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags: Blowjobs, Referenced Past Relationships, Wild Speculation on Lance’s Love Life, Domestic Abuse (kinda), Violence, Guns, Bad Communication, Referenced Past Emotional Abuse, Keith Needs to Use His Words, No Not Like That, Accidental Voyeurism, No One Enjoys It, What Is This Even.

Keith wakes suddenly. 

It’s the only way he knows how to sleep, dead to the world one moment and on edge the next. To say that he’s alarmed when he fails to launch himself upright would be an understatement. There’s a warm weight across his shoulders, dragging low into the valley of his waist, not quite restaining but heavy enough to stall his immediate leap upwards. The pillow beneath his head shifts and swells and it hits Keith suddenly that it’s not a pillow at all. 

He stills, body, mind and breath all shocked in realization and flashing recollection. He can feel his face heating up as memory trickles in alongside the dawning soreness of his throat. 

He swallows around the ache, feels the bruises press back against the motion in a rolling swell of tingling heat. Another part of him begins to stiffen too.

Lance, almost in sheer contrast, wakes slowly. His lashes flutter, blue eyes slipping into view with languid blinks and easy breaths. A contented sigh slips between his lips, limbs stretching, shaking off the dust of sleep with each twitch. 

His head lolls to the side eyes drinking in Keith’s face with none of the shock or surprise he anticipated.

A few ticks pass, Keith feels his spine unwind in increments. Hesitantly, he places his hands back down, lowering his guard physically. 

Making the effort. 

Blue eyes glimmer in the still dim hold before blowing wide. Lance takes a sharp breath in - and then dives under the covers.

_ Seriously? _

Exasperation and something more jagged, something painfully close to  _ hurt, _ burbles inside Keith.

“Lance,” He says and then winces. His voice… isn’t quite as bad as he’d feared.

He’s definitely hoarse.

The vibrations echo outward, bouncing off his throat and the cold metal walls of Red’s ribs. They run down his spine, patter across the gentle bruises on his arms, remind him  _ exactly _ what they’d been doing the night before. He feels himself flush at the throaty echo of his voice. 

He feathers a few fingers over his throat, wonders if he’ll have any marks, any warm-dark patches he can feel beneath the pads of his fingers, that’ll press, constantly, against the high collar of the mamoran suit he’d yet to replace. 

His pulse is racing.

Okay, so maybe there  _ was _ some sense in hiDING- 

The yelp that bursts out of him would be embarrassing if it wasn’t also entirely justified. 

Keith’s hands tear into the mattress, struggling to keep his legs still in effort to  _ not _ give the horrible, wonderful, moron between them a concussion as thanks for the surprise blowjob he’s apparently being given this fine morning.

Lance, unseen, ducks lower - or at least Keith assumes he does because more and more of him is disappearing into the  _ hot soft wet  _ that’s steadily chewing away at his remaining brain cells. He sucks in a deep breath, feels his stomach pull tighter, ribs press out and away and counts.  _ One. Two. Thr- _

Long fingers curl over his hips, pressing him down. 

Whatever it was that marshalled his thoughts shatters. He feels more than hears the noise, all that caught breath ripping out of him. 

There’s a wild, oddly coherent moment, wherein he feels a strong sense of affirmation because he just  _ knew Lance’s mouth was good for som- _

Vibrations rocket through Keith’s pelvis. It takes his scrambled brain a few ticks to put together that Lance is humming around him. 

He keens, breathless, something about the sensation bursting through him. The way Lance’s fingers are pressing bruises into his hips and thighs, maybe. In how the other is doing this without question - like it was normal, like it’s something he  _ wants _ \- sets his head spinning. 

He’s flat on his back, not sure when his head hit the mattress but grateful for the comfort. His teeth sink into the corner of the nearest case of fluff, tongue worrying at a circular zipper as his jaw almost grinds with the effort of letting Lance’s hands still his hips. Blunt nails bite into his skin, pressing bruises into life and it would be so  _ easy _ to just thrust forward and force those fingers deep-

An arm slams over his pelvis, warm and solid and heavy, when those fingers prove to be insufficient one smothered laugh later.

His thighs flex, trapped ears pressing into unguarded flesh and if his eyes weren’t busy spelunking the back of his skull he’d be gratified that the laughter turned to moaning. 

But they were, so instead he feels his toes uncurl and point helplessly as the vibrations increase, Lance’s tongue rattling around now, an honest-to-god rumble audible from beneath the covers and- and- 

* * *

Lance is entirely too smug when Keith’s spirit renters his body.

“Good morning,” 

The halfling swats clumsily at the smug voice between his legs. The half hearted strike goes wide as that damn tongue swipes over him. A noise strangles past his control, hoarse voice and tingling limbs rendering it totally impossible to tell if it’d been closer to ‘good morning’ or ‘fuck off’. 

Whatever it was, it just made Lance laugh and bounce out of bed, taking the covers with him the absolute bastard. Keith groans and lets the idiot ( _ his _ idiot?) shuffle away in a be-toga’d victory dance, toes still curled in simmering ecstasy. There’s a hiss of water through pipes and a noisy clatter that he pointedly refuses to open his eyes for as he lays there and attempts to bask in whatever the hell this bone-deep lassitude was. 

_ How _ was Lance able to- to, well,  _ that _ ? 

Because, Keith realizes as his brain slowly fuzzes back in post exploding through his dick, the only way for Lance to be any good at all would be through _ practice _ . 

The buzzing in his bones pricks. 

Practice with  _ other people. _

The thought burns.

“I wonder what Hunk’s whipped up for breakfast.” Lance’s voice echoes through the doorless partition, heedless of the sparks in Keith’s blood. There’s a clatter of dropped armor, the noise no more relevant than whatever else Lance is saying. “Hey, do you think the mice help him? Like in  _ Ratatouille? _ Man, that’d be weird.”

Keith hums noncommittally as his brain circles around, chasing itself into knots. 

Who the hell had Lance been practicing on?

_ With _ , some insidious voice in the back of his head hisses.  _ Who has he been practicing  _ with _. _ Because, he thought darkly as Lance hopped and shimmied gracelessly into the black undersuit, the odds of it being an innate talent were… Lance lets out a yip as he catches part of his thumb in the clasp of his shin guards. Yeah. ‘Unlikely’ was too weak a term. 

And Lance was good. Not that he’d be telling him that any time soon but that much was pretty undeniable. 

_ A  _ lot  _ of practice, then. _

* * *

Lance peeks around the corner at that noncommittal growl. Sees Keith’s brain overheating - sees a lot more than that, actually. 

It takes him a moment to process- well, everything. 

Last night, this morning. Keith laying, belly bared and thighs just covered by the still rucked blanket, spread vulnerable and still a bit dazed in  _ Lance _ ’s bed. It chokes the air in his lungs, locks his legs, sends a pins and needles tickle from his wrists through his palms with the bone deep desire to finger comb out the knots in those inky locks. 

He looks away, before he gets caught. Slides his second boot on. Let’s the rest of the armor crawl up his body in a weird shimmer of tech that will  _ always _ look more like magic than logic before fitting the chestplate and gloves where they belong. 

He traces the blue V, feelings a tangled knot inside him. 

Part of him feels colder in the armor. 

He learns against the alcove’s wall, chewing the inside of his cheek. Because part of him feels… safer, too. 

_ More instinct than skill, huh? _

Never really thought of himself as ‘instinctive’ before. Instinct tended to war with anxiety which sparred with worry and sucker-punched doubt and, honestly, in retrospect it wasn’t a shock he’d effectively acted as Keith’s breaks ( _ training wheels _ ) those first few days with him in Black. 

But hell if ducking under the covers this morning hadn’t been more instinct than thought. 

He hasn’t felt so sure in… years, really. So certain in himself, so set in  _ this is an okay thing. A fun thing. The  _ right _ thing.  _ That it was leaving him ringing, hollow and empty, in the aftershocks. 

He wondered if, maybe, the same was happening to Keith. 

Then Keith stands up, naked as the day, and every thought falls right out of Lance’s head. Because,  _ well _ . What’s he supposed to do with a naked Keith swaggering towards him? Not look at those broad shoulders drawn back, chest puffed out - pecs almost bouncing with each step towards him? Ha, don’t  _ think _ so. 

It was a heady visage, electricity zipping up Lance’s spine as he drew closer. Maybe he’d been a bit hasty in getting dressed again? 

Keith let loose a snarl, the sound completely unrecognizable from the playful noise issued the previous night, and Lance had just enough time to feel his hair stand on end for all the wrong reasons before the first blow sent dark stars swirling across his vision.

A clawed hand caught him just before he hit the floor, knees slamming into the ground before he was hauled right back up.

Keith  _ did _ get bigger while he was on that space whale. Bigger than Lance, not that the boy figured that was all that high a bar really, but the swelling pecs and rippling muscles he’d appreciated earlier looked less inviting and more like neon warning signs. 

_ Murder imminent,  _ they flashed and Lance gives a half-second prayer to whoever was looking after useless bisexuals like him because, lord help him, he oogled when he should’ve zagged. Or maybe zigged. Anything but stand there and let Keith’s hands close over him! 

But close over him they did and the bruises currently embedding themselves into his  _ bones  _ were of the decidedly un-sexy kind. 

The whole thing, Lance thought detachedly as he bounced violently off one wall only to slam right back into the snarling claws of his possible-(ex)lover, was really, extremely, cliche-endingly  _ not sexy _ . 

He’d always thought a possessive lover would be, well, honestly his dream come true. Hey, he had  _ some _ self awareness. 

...not enough to get out of the way of the elbow that slams somewhere near his kidneys as he tries, and oh-so-painfully fails, to dodge around Keith’s left side. But, Lance thought as his breath left him for the third time, they all had their strengths. 

His was, unfortunately, crippling self-awareness and not psychotic-ninja-warrior hand to hand combat. 

But, yeah, like he was saying, he thought he’d, you know,  _ enjoy _ being the center of someone’s attention. Be like, their exception or something. Their first choice. 

He rolled a little with the punches, not totally displeased that Allura’s training resulted in this being literal for once instead of just emotional. He didn’t have any time to celebrate the series of successful blocks, though, because this wasn’t training and, he winces as his shin spikes with pins and needles, Keith wasn’t Allura. 

Another swing, another desperate hop back. A worried niggle starts up in the back of Lance’s head, flashes of the night before replaying through his distracted brain between the flashes of pain. 

The easy acquiescence, the happy moans, the  _ yellow eyes _ . He’d thought… well.

So he was a little needy. Attention-starved, the Garrison’s profile read once upon a break-in. 

Being the One and Only of some unknown figure always sounded so  _ romantic _ . And last night had been- 

_ Keith _ had been so into it and- 

He thought-

The distraction costs him.

There’s a foot hooked around his ankle and a another fist in his face and then the ground rushes up to meet him all too eagerly, Keith tangled around him as he bore down into that unforgiving floor.

Its not, Lance realizes somewhere between the fire racing up his left arm and the shock-flash of indignation, even a proper combat hold. The realisation burns. Every doubt he’s ever had about piloting Red, about standing with the others at all, lances through him. 

_ Doesn’t even take you seriously, won’t  _ ever _ take you seriously. Joke. Replacement.  _

_ Seventh Wheel.  _

He swallows back bile. Grits his teeth. 

“Keith.”

The snarling gets louder, more guttural. Whatever words Keith thinks he’s saying are… really not making it anywhere past the blender of the guy’s throat. (Which could, possibly, maybe, sort of entirely something to do with him and _ them _ and, woah, bad time for  _ those _ thoughts - really brain?!)

Lance’s wrists are starting to  _ hurt _ . 

He can’t move them, can’t even jar his arms. Keith’s nails,  _ are those claws _ , are starting to scrape against the paladin armor ( _ thank --- he was  _ wearing it _. He doesn’t know if… _ and kills the thought before it can finish. Not important now. Panic later.) 

Pain rattles up his arms, and oh look, Keith’d found his words again. Great.

“Was it Allura? Huh? She finally take pity and let you  _ try _ ?”

A screech of renting metal. Claws,  _ dios _ , those are actually claws, raking _ way  _ too close to his head. Keith leaned closer, morning breath hot against his face. 

“Is that why Hunk bothered keeping you around for so long?” 

There’s something awful in that voice. Lance knows the beat of what’s coming even before those yellow lit eyes narrow (and to think he’d been  _ admiring  _ them not too long ago, just how stupid was he?). “Sure as hell wasn’t for your  _ piloting _ skills.” 

Tears sting the corners of Lance’s eyes. He can’t tell if its from the almost-numbing pain in his wrists or the harsh words. The world blurs. God, what kind of moron  _ is _ he? 

Something warmer than shame, warmer than the fear curdling in his belly, snakes up his spine. His hands still, fine tremors vanishing even as Keith shakes his captive arm hard enough to wrench his shoulder in it’s socket. He bites down on the yelp, feels his teeth grind. 

Fine!

_ Fine. _

Maybe he is an idiot. 

Maybe he’s too trusting. Nima taught him that pretty quickly. Lotor only proved every nasty voice in his head true and Shiro’d hammered it all home. 

_ Like he’d ever actually want  _ you _.  _ The voice sneered,  _ He didn’t even remember your name.  _

The acid-heat flickers, spreads. Hotter now. Matching the pain he’s mostly managed to ignore, a familiar ability he wishes he’d never managed to cultivate. 

_ Raised voice. Straight dismissal. He doesn’t even have  _ time _ for you. _

Lance’s hands clenched into fists, flashes of yellow eyes swirling through his mind. 

The tears spill.

_ I’m such an idiot. _

* * *

The world is nothing but a rush of color and noise. It’s the pulse in his throat, the give of platemail under his hands, the  _ burning _ that’d started in his chest.

Then the world tilts, not unlike Kosmo’s earliest attempts at warping. 

His head hurts, slammed into the floor, and one of his arms is already warning him of  _ bruises, pulled tendon, still trapped, ow _ , from where it’s twisted beneath him. 

It doesn’t take long for the rest of him to catch up.

Keith, as the world filters back in, feels a flare of amused pride for Lance. The other’s never been good at close combat. He wonders why that move hadn’t come up before in any of their spars and his breath catches in his chest as he takes in Lance’s expression.

His blue eyes are sharp and not at all in the intense, captivating, way they’d been the night before. 

Lance looks like he wants to be away. Across the room. 

_ Tactically, that’d be better for him- _ and then the rest of Keith’s brain comes back online. 

(What.) 

His previously boiling blood shocks to ice.

(The fuck.)

Lance looks like wants to be across the room because Keith  _ assaulted  _ him. 

(Just happened.)

There are gouge marks,  _ what _ , raking down Lance’s armor. Bite marks,  _ the _ , bleeding sluggishly, bracket Lance’s high cheekbones.  _ Fuck _ .

He goes to reach for the wounds with his free arm and freezes. 

There’s a gun tucked under his chin. 

_ Fuck _ .

Lance’s throat bobs in a harsh swallow. Keith slowly lowers his arm back down, trying and failing to pretend that his eyes aren’t riveted on the bob of Lance’s throat. His gaze bounces around what little of the room he can see before a nudge under his chin draws him back to the _fucking gun_ _muzzle_ pressed against his kiss-bruised pulse point.

It’s red and white and not a form Keith has ever seen. For a hysterical moment, it flashes through his mind,  _ our bayard - our lion - our paladin - wouldn’t couldn’t can’t hurt us _ , and he has to press himself lax beneath Lance in order to resist rolling over and vomiting.

“You in there?” 

Nausea roils through him in a second surge, anger hot on its heels. 

“I am not a clone!”

The gun whirrs. 

Keith sinks back down.

He doesn’t know enough about firearms, never mind firearms created by giant robotic lions in space, to be able to guess if the noise is a bluff or if Lance genuinely held the trigger long enough to charge a blast.

“Not-Shiro was the same.” 

His voice is… flat. Detached. Lance’s hands don’t waver a centimeter, gun remaining unbearingly steady; the wide barrel held over Keith’s throat. “He seemed… normal. At first. And then little things started.”

Keith wasn’t entirely willing to bet his agility against Lance’s aim. All the same he probably could-

“He got aggressive.”

-he blinked, hard. Lance didn’t seem to notice.

“Threw his weight around. Got possessive. Dictatorial. Started to disregard our opinions.” 

Lance was… the heat that had kicked up with Lance atop him snuffed out. Lance sounded too sure of this. Too  _ close _ to this for him to not have… What  _ happened _ ? 

Lance seemed to fold in on himself, the gun finally lowering away from Keith.

A mirthless laugh barked out of his throat. 

Keith flinched. 

“Who am I kidding. I couldn’t pull the trigger on Shiro. Like hell I’d be able to shoot  _ you _ .” 

“Lance…”

The paladin flinches back, wincing as the instinctive dodge jerks him off balance. Keith winces in turn as the younger paladin comes down hard on bruised wrists ( _ my fault) _ and lunges up to grab him before any more damage can be done. 

Tear laden eyes stare at him shock. They’re close enough that their noses brush. 

He can feel Lance trembling.

_ This wasn’t what he remembered _ . 

It wasn’t right! 

C’mon, Kogane - Think, think! 

_ Can’t think, panicking. Working on instincts. _

God, he just wanted Lance to stop crying. It was wrong. It shouldn’t be happening. And he, as sure as he knew his name, should not be the cause of it. 

Salt bursts across his tongue and he chases it despite hating the taste. Bitter and scorned and  _ pained _ . Keith’s chest tightens with each pass, lungs locking up in sympathy. A whine split the air - _ here, here, I’m here -  _ miserable and worried as the tears kept coming. 

“Uhhh…”

Keith stops dead. 

Wide eyes lock in mutual stares of sheer disbelief. Keith’s tongue feels tacky, drying in the recycled air where it’s pressed ignominiously to Lance’s cheek. 

_ Instincts bad. _

He should move. Should do something, anything, other than sit here and blush. A stray tear slides across his tongue and he licks up Lance’s sharp cheekbone without thought, pausing only to find himself stuck once again in the same awkward spot. 

The vid-com opens up with a click.

“Hey man, you okay in there? We saw Red rock and...” Hunk trails off, wide eyed and slowly flushing. 

Keith, salt still curdling on his taste buds, has a second to imagine the picture they’ve painted here. He’s... more or less in Lance’s lap, their legs tangled and overlapping as he braces against the floor to hover over Lance’s hips. Lance is is still watery-eyed and red-tinged, one of his bruised wrist held captive within Keith’s naked grasp. Which is, he hopes suddenly, totally unnoticed due to the minor fact of Keith’s tongue still being completely extended and pressed to Lance’s cheek. 

Their eyes slowly, silently, track over to the screen, each of the three flushing a violent red as the silence stretches. 

Hunk breaks first. A loud squeak eeking out of his dropped jaw and that is  _ it _ .

Keith swats the connection closed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hunk, concerned and calling Lance after seeing Red almost do a barrel roll completely out of the blue: DUDE! WHAT WAS THAT? ARE YOU OK- *screen shows Keith, half straddling a wrecked, bleeding and armored Lance, with both his tongue and dick out* -AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!


	6. Murder Grandpa 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obligatory vampire story with a twist.

Veronica’s tray hits the table with a clatter. 

“Lance,” she starts, with a paradoxical sense of forced calm, “I saw our grandfather last night.” 

Lance looked between his plate of worse-than-goo and Veronica’s… well, actually, her tray seemed to be filled with a bunch of random things. Mostly utensils and, bizarrely, what looks like the inside of a communicator. 

“O-kay? That’s… great? Isn’t it?” He doesn’t wait for her to respond, “Why isn’t he with mee-maw then?”

Veronica looks at him, face drawn and distant and cold, and Lance feels a shudder race down his spine before she answers the question. 

“The other one.” 

...Well that’s just unhelpful. If she didn’t feel like answering she should have just said as much.

Lance scrunched his face up, trying to remember what he could’ve done to piss his middle-big sister off, “We don’t have another o..ne-”, before paling dramatically. “What  _ that _ one!?” He almost screams, looming into his sister’s personal space over the plastic cafeteria table.

Veronica hisses at him, yanking the paladin back down onto the cafeteria bench with a strict glare. Lance gears up to yell again before he clocks the turned heads and odd glances. 

Across the room, Keith tilts his head wondering what they needed to be yelling about so early in the morning. He puts his cup down as Lance shrinks in on himself, as though he’s self conscious, and leans against his sister’s shoulder, mouth tucked low enough that it’s hard for Keith to read his lips. 

“OH W-w-well that’s, that’s  _ so _ . Funny. Ronnie. HahaHA.” The words are bitten out, harsh and almost panicked. 

“What’s so bad about a grandfather?”

Krolia hums into her own coffee, unbothered by the non sequitur. “I’m not sure. You seem to get along with Kolivan ‘just fine’.”

Keith inhales water into his lungs and nearly dents the table with his fist as he fights for air. 

“ _ Mom.”  _

Krolia takes a long slurp from her plastic mug, face unreadable and silent. 

Keith despairs. “I can’t tell if you’re joking.”

A purple eye slides over to him before the edges of her mouth curl into a smile as she steps away from the table. 

“You’re joking, right?”

No answer. 

“Krolia?!”

* * *

_ Skritch skritch skritch. _

His fingers rub against splintered wood, pricks and prods catching nastily against the ridges of his fingertips. Threatening to puncture, to sting, yet peeling away harmlessly beneath his nails before they do. A dry sprig of hay pokes against him, again, and he shifts in place. It’s hot and dry and miserable, sun baking the air even inside the shadowed barn. 

Ronnie is still yelling. 

His shoulders come up around his ears, ducking low as if he could tune her out. He shifts and shimmies away from the itchy hay, body a radio-dial. Everything is uncomfortable. His eyes feel sticky, his mouth is crusty, even his palms tingle. 

He thinks she’s crying. Small hands reach up and cover his ears, palms pressing inwards. He doesn’t like the sound. It tastes scared. It feels angry. 

Its loud. He hurts again. 

He doesn’t like it. 

It’s not fair. 

He hiccups, air catching wrong in his chest. It sticks there.

It’s not fair it’s not fair  _ it’s not fair! _

* * *

“What do you  _ mean _ he’s here?”

Veronica rolls her eyes and Lance resolves to smudge the heck out of her glasses first chance he gets. 

“Just that. I saw him near the hangar the other night. The  _ Lion’s _ hangar,” she bites out before Lance or Marco can get a word in edgewise about the number of hangars. 

“What does Ma think?” 

Lance feels his stomach sink as his older siblings exchange glances. 

“You haven’t told them.” It’s not a question.

Marco shakes his head, “We don’t want to panic anyone.”

“Wait, we? Hang on - you’ve seen him too!” a few dusty pieces click into place, “You know what he looks like!” Lance swings his glare over to Veronica, “That’s not fair, how come Rachel and I are always left out like this?” Lance shakes his head and moves to pull out his cell, “She needs to be he-” Veronica’s hand closes over his own, forcing the phone down. 

“Rachel already knows.”

Hurt blue eyes shine up at her. Veronica winced, she hates that face. Puppy-dog eyes were cheating! 

“...What do you think he wants?” 

Marco shrugs, “It was the end of the world. Maybe he wants answers? I’d be pretty grumpy if something incinerated my front lawn.”

Veronica elbows him, hard. Marco just laughs. “What? I’m serious. He’s  _ ancient _ . He might not have any idea of what’s going on.”

Lance relaxed little, “Maybe he wants to get back in touch?”

Marco and Veronica tense up, nearly frozen at the words. Lance flinches in response. 

“I mean, he had that fight with papi  _ years _ ago. Can’t think of anything more likely to get someone to put aside old grudges like an alien invasion.” 

“I… don’t think that’s it.” 

“Well, why not?”

“Reconciliation isn’t exactly something he’s known for, Lance.” 

“Well it’s not like anyone's told  _ me _ that!” 

Neither of them responded beyond another guilty set of winces. Their father’s father (or, well, close enough) was a touchy subject to begin with. By the time Lance was five, it’d become something of a taboo. 

Not a lot was ever said, ever needed to be said, about how that came about. 

* * *

Today was not a good day. 

Luis sighed and looked down on his younger siblings with all the patience he could muster.

Veronica dug her head deeper into him, left hand held carefully away from their bodies the same way Lisa held Gata’s rats by their tails. 

In that moment, Lancey looked eerily like the sad man papi chased out into the moonlight. The sad man who’d left more because he was unwanted than because papi scared him.

It made Luis nervous, to see those eyes in his youngest brother’s face; cold and small and empty. He tightened his grip on Veronica, held her close, felt the long shadow of the man in the dark pass over him in broad daylight. She dug her nails into his arm and pushed away when he flinched. Her hair cracked over her shoulder like a kite catching a breeze and then she was out the door, into the sunlight. Probably running home. 

Sunlight bounces red off the uprooted nail. Iron and rust and iron again glinting cheerfully in the little bit of light high-noon let slip through the slats.

“Lance.”

Small and empty and cold, his little head tilted up to look at him. His lower lip trembled even as his eyes remained dry. It turned Luis’ stomach, watching the incomplete pantomime of crying. Of all the little quirks Lancey had, this one bothered him the most. 

(It would take the longest to resolve itself. But that was just one more chalk line; Lance would grow up nothing if not a dedicated showman.)

Luis sighed and crouched in front of his littlest brother, careful not to step on the dried husk discarded between them. 

“Lancey.”

The boy hiccuped, shoulders bouncing. 

Louis wished this wasn’t happening. He wished it was a mistake, that it’d been an accident. Just bad balance and pain and tears complicating the stories of little boys and little girls. Just the tell-tales of small siblings trying to avoid trouble. 

There’s a dead snake and Ronnie’s hand isn’t bleeding anymore.

There’s no mistaking that. 

* * *

Veronica sighs, hand running through her hair. “Just… be careful, alright?” 

Lance looks at her. His head tilts a bit to the side in that little tick they’d never quite managed to break him of. He looks washed out under the fluorescent lights of the Garrison. Paler. A little taller and a little more gaunt in the face than he’d left them. 

Being in space would do that to you. Being away from the, a, sun would do that, she thought. It was all easily explained. Lack of sun, more exercise, insufficient nutrients in whatever that ‘goo’ supposedly contained. 

Lance’s weird blue eyes, the only ones in their family, bore into her and Veronica did her best to suppress her shudder. 

At first she, she thought she was seeing things. 

She hadn’t believed them when they’d reported her brother dead. Not when they sent out the memo, not when they confronted her at her post and not when they shipped his belongings home in little cardboard caskets. 

Whether it was pity or forgetfulness when they approved her transfer the next year, she really didn’t care. 

Either way it got her to Lance’s Garrison. Got her into their systems and logs and, eventually, into that half-collapsed cave system.

The first time she saw him, really caught a glimpse of him full on, she’d thought that maybe Lance hadn’t gone to space at all. 

Thought that maybe he’d been trapped in those caves this entire time. Pale and dark-haired and light-eyed. Older but recognizable all the same. 

She spent a good long while fighting with herself in that sigil marked cave. Trying to muster up the courage to say something, anything, to catch his attention. To call him to her and bring him  _ home _ . 

And then she saw him  _ move _ and she knew. 

It wasn’t Lance. 

Wasn’t his ghost or a figment or even a familiar stranger.

“Look, didn’t he- lock himself away or something? Like, in hospice?” Lance looked skeptical and it was hard, so hard, not to blame him. The dry crinkle of skin and scales rattled in her ears. Loud enough that she could almost swear it was real. But she couldn’t. Lance didn’t know. He’d never met their grandfather, probably thought of him as some sort of boogeyman and- 

“I thought he was through with us, right? Wasn’t that what the ‘fight’ was all about?” Lance’s hands came up to make exaggerated air quotes around ‘fight’ before falling dramatically back into his lap. 

She exchanged an uncomfortable look with Marco.

They’d never met him either. Not properly. But she was there the day their dad kicked him out, just a few days before Lance was born. She may not have been told but she  _ knew _ (in the way of children and animals) then that he was  _ no good _ . 

Now she knows, in the way of hard found facts and uncomfortably faced truths, that she’d been right. 

And now, Veronica adjusted her glasses - stalling for time to find the words, he was back.

Marco slung a lanky arm over Lance’s shoulders and rocked their baby brother sharply to the left. The  _ scritch scritch scritch _ of Lance’s manicured nails against plastic chair arms cuts off with a quiet scrape.

“Chill out, Lala. Just don’t go wandering around alone and we’ll all be fine!” 

Lance shrugs Marco off. “House rules? Seriously?” 

He’s annoyed, Veronica realises. Their grandfather is out there, wandering around doing who knows what on a military base and he’s-

“Fine. Whatever. Let me know when you’re  _ allowed _ to tell me something useful.” 

The door slams shut behind him. Marco whistles. 

“That went well.” His brown eyes slide over to meet her own, uncommonly serious. “So. When  _ are _ we going to tell him?” 

He raises his hands to fend off her glare. 

“Hey, he’s not entirely wrong Ronnie. He needs to know  _ something _ or he’s gonna walk right into a bad situation sooner instead of later.” 

“This entire thing is a bad situation.”

Marco doesn’t look away. She does and misses the days when his playful facade was more real than forced. 

“You have to at least tell him about the Lions.”

“What?”

“Don’t look at me like that, I read your notes.” He hefted his own device and mimed swiping through a page. “First the caves, then the lab and now the hangar? Sounds like the old guy is after something.” 

Marco looks away and slouches back into his chair. “So… what are we gonna tell him?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No idea how much more there will be to this but I have a few notes knocking around.


	7. TEST SAMPLE - Crossover concept: Bleach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a test sample to see if any of y'all would be interested in a fic like this. I've given a general idea of where I'm coming from and going with below the sample with a little background for those unfamiliar with Bleach (or only familiar with the english anime). 
> 
> The fic/idea is NOT up for adoption. This is measure general interest as well as see if any of my readers know Bleach at all (idle curiosity). If you'd like to use the concept please ASK and we can discuss what that could look like. 
> 
> I have one of these for Starwars and She-Ra (pretty much identical - a small writing sample and then a universe sketched out) and will post them based off responses here. 
> 
> For those who don't know Bleach - feel free to ask questions or just roll on.

Lance scoffed and looked aside. “Doesn’t matter anyway, we’re gemischt.”

“Look, I know you’ve got some obvious self esteem issues but there’s no need to call yourself sh-”

“It’s german for mixed, asshole!”

Keith stared incredulously at the others dark skin and curling hair for a moment before he found himself caught on the pale blue eyes boring into his own.

“...Oh.”

“Yeah, _oh_.” 

But the taller boy snorted a laugh so Keith counted it as a win. The quincy, whatever that was, scuffed his white-blue sneakers against the ground. 

“Sort of screwed all around. Got more reiatsu than a standard human so we’re under threat of being eaten by hollows. Cant fight off the hollows cause one, the light show’ll draw more and two, even if they get off their asses and do their jobs, the damn Shinigami will kill us on sight.” He drew an angry breath, missing Keith’s panicked look at the mention of shinigami.

“And we can’t huddle together too much cause guess what! Abeulo,” he hissed the word like a title and a cuss all at once, “had to go and be a vengeful cult leader!”

Keith had a feeling he was going to regret asking but, 

“Abuelo?”

“Big old fucker in some halfway dimension.” Lance waved a hand carelessly, undermining the absurd horror of his own words. “All quincy get their power from him.”

He clenched and unclenched his raised hand, looking at it like he’d been asked to identify it and found it new.

Keith could tell there was a lot Lance wasn’t saying, but the information was already a lot to process.

Quincy? Genocides? Prophecies and lineages?

It was a lot all at once.

Here he’d thought finding out his unwanted-roommate was 10,000 years old was a lot to deal with.

* * *

* * *

AU PREMISE NOTES - CONTAINS SPOILERS:

(Some details subject to change)

General Concept:

Substitute (and half) Shinigami!Keith 

Quincy&Fulbring!Lance

Keith grew up unaware of his heritage (his father passing away a la canon about the same time), but very aware of the horrible things that no one else can see. His world is blown open when his adopted not-father (Shiro) is nearly eaten by one of the invisible creatures and a white-haired woman nearly stabs him in his bedroom all in the same night. 

The woman, Allura, claims to be a shinigami; a death god who ferries souls across to the next life and fights against those who have become corrupt and ‘Hollow’. 

When Allura breaks the rules to heal Shiro’s fractured soul-chain, it falls to Keith to take up her duties while she recovers. 

[Keith’s mother is a shinigami (member of the 2nd division… haven’t decided if I’m keeping most of Bleach canon [ie: the better known characters] or if I’m just going to toss it all up together or out on its ear. For now, Krolia is absolutely a member of the Onmitsukidō and the rest is not-yet-disclosed details).]

Lance is, as are a majority of his family, a Quincy; living souls capable of breaking the cycle of reincarnation. In the past, Quincy used this ability to protect the living from Hollows. However, their ability to ‘destroy’ souls upset the balance and they were hunted down in a purposeful genocide perpetrated by the Shinigami nearly 1,000 years ago. 

Lance and Rachel are Fulbring as well due to Mama McClain getting attacked by, and surviving, a Hollow during her pregnancy with the twins. 

Lance has more capacity to generate and channel spiritual energy than Rachel, but Rachel’s fulbring is more developed. Lance largely neglects his fulbring in favor of developing the traditional Quincy abilities. 

Like Lance, Rachel is very interested in her family’s history and abilities. However, she has a hard time manipulating ambient reshi leading to immense frustration with Quincy techniques. As such, her Fulbring manifested earlier than Lance’s and is more refined due to frequent practice. 

Veronica has very low spiritual energy and prefers to not be involved in anything to do with the after life. She hasn’t, however, managed to shake her upbringing and instead channels her aggressive tendencies into her promising military career. 

Marco practices the most with creating various spirit weapons, but like Louis he prefers to avoid conflict. Marco is actually the most easy-going of the entire McClain clan. 

Lisa can barely see spirits and was largely uninvolved with the entire family secret... she now, however, is about to have her second kid (Sylvio) and is worried that latent Quincy genes might show up. 

Louis went through a phase (similar to the one Lance seems to be in) where he was frustrated by their lack of ability to aid others despite being aware of their suffering (largely Plus souls and Hollows). Louis likely influenced Veronica’s stance via his following phase of careful apithy. Louis now channels his frustration with the after life into attempting to make _this_ life a better time and place for those living it. (my Pacifist Peace Corp Louis McClain HC’s are strong as always)

Mama McClain is a quincy, but is gemischt (mother was echt, father was human). 

Papi McClain is actually Echt but is excommunicated due to his marrying a gemischt. Papi McClain, Lance, Louis and Veronica are all capable of various levels of Blut. Louis specializes in Defensive Blut. Veronica in Offensive (though she’s mostly let it slide in recent years). Lance has practiced to hone his instinctive use of Blut Vene- but has been largely forbidden from practicing with the offensive variant. 

Both McClains agreed to keep their children informed of what they are and where they came from. All of the children have received ‘basic’ training (for an echt quincy mind) - though it has been stressed that they are _never_ to use their techniques for anything other than to escape. 

The elder McClains placed a lot of emphasis on Blut Vene (for the children who possessed the ability) and Hirenkyaku. It may not have been the wisest choice, but they’d rather know their children are capable of holding their own if necessary. (This stance was only reinforced after Mama McClain was nearly devoured by a Hollow.) 

None of the McClains have or have unlocked a Vollständig. 

This Lance occasionally curses because he’s in an edgy phase and thinks it makes him sound cool/more mature. He does not do so anywhere near his home or any of his older sibling. 

Rival!Lance is a big mood for this in the bgn… when he finally learns about Keith he is so pissed off. 

I’m not sure Lance will/would resort to Uuryu levels of stupid with Hollow Bait (because unlike Uuryu, Lance _does_ feel like he has something to lose and won’t risk his family or the families of others) but he’s definetly in Keith’s face _a lot_ . Keith is mostly confused. Lance is mostly jealous that Keith can do something to actually _help people_ while he can’t and expresses his envy and frustration poorly. 

I toyed with the idea of making Krolia (and later Keith) visord specifically for the mask - but ultimately decided it was more fun/interesting to keep Keith hollow-free. He’s broody enough as is. 

Shiro, instead, gets the Hollow problems as he’s stuck between Visord and Fulbring due to Allura’s meddling. (Shiro absolutely names his completely white hollow ‘Kuron’ just to piss it off.) Shiro _does not die_. He’s a very messed up human, but he’s alive. 

Adam may or may not be alive, but he’s mentioned. At the Start of the fic (re: Meeting Allura) Adam and Shiro are not living together due to a large argument they had a few months into their engagement regarding Shiro’s health. 

If Adam is dead, Keith (and Shiro during xxx arc that involves them in Soul Society for whatever reasons) might stumble upon a hungry Adam in the outer rings… sadly like all souls in the next life he has no memories of his past life. 

If Adam is alive, he might be hiding secrets of his own… 

Allura is a full Shinigami who’s quietly working towards her Bankai. She’s a high-ranked seated officer, but is not yet a Vice Captain or Captain. 

(By the end, Bleach completely erased just how absurdly difficult it is to obtain a Bankai. It’s freaking _hard_ . Not everyone has one and not everyone is _capable_ of achieving one. It’s a BFD, okay?) Allura is in the 5th division (even though, yes, I know, canon makes it VERY complicated. ‘Sacrifice, Danger, Humility’ fit her best though so I won’t be budged.)

ATM there’s a loose concept of Zarkon pulling a sort of Aizen with Honerva coming from somewhere in the 12th division (possibly the Captain or the VC at the time) to act as the instigator. Present plan is her experiments on Hollows goes horribly wrong/right and Zarkon gets dragged into it (sort of a more tragic and antagonistic Kiaen/Miyako situation). Alfor would be captain of the 5th and Zarkon the captain of the 3rd. 

This, however, is all very hushed up and very few are willing to speak about what happened. As such, Allura doesn’t know much about her own parents nor what happened to the rest of her Clan.

Melanor would be captain of the 2nd because you can pry that assassin HC away from my fingers by force. Maybe she retired due to conflict of interest… Melanor = Shihouin esq then. 

Yes, 'Abuelo' is Ywatch/Juubach. It tickled me. 

Kosmo is Keith's Zanpakuto. Keith thinks doing the whole chain-phrase to summon his Shikai is a waste of time so he usually just calls his blade 'Kosmo'. Like in Canon, Kosmo is pretty aware/sentient and sometimes doesn't listen or perform as well as Keith would like when he doesn't use his 'proper' name... 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fic/idea is NOT up for adoption. This is measure general interest as well as see if any of my readers know Bleach at all (idle curiosity). If you'd like to use the concept please ASK and we can discuss what that could look like. 
> 
> I have one of these for Starwars and She-Ra (pretty much identical - a small writing sample and then a universe sketched out) and will post them based off responses here.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance vs KPH : unknown

They have him pinned. 

Pidge circles around from the left while Keith skids in low from the right. 

Their target is trapped behind his shield, arms visibly jerking with the recoil of holding off Hunk’s heavy machine fire. 

Keith watches small eyes narrow, watches the pulse jump in Lance’s jaw as he gets closer, closer, and is nearly blinded by the flash of light that sweeps over the other’s shield. It seems to sink inwards, as though it’s breaking under the weight of Hunk’s strikes, and Keith draws air to call Hunk off - and loses it as he’s forced to roll sideways. The concave shield shifts, Lance planting his weight anew, and Hunks shots  _ ricochet _ in, around, and off as the shield  _ grows _ . Bullets spray everywhere, he and Pidge just as much at risk as Lance. 

“Sorry! Sorr- ugh, okay-” 

Hunk grunts and there’s two more flashes. 

_ More _ bullets didn’t seem like a great idea to Keith but - he skids around the sudden machinery in front of him. The yellow-and-white colors along with that teal glow marking it as  _ somehow _ the yellow paladins. 

_ Oh. Turrets. That’s new. _

He weaves his way around -

The trident slices past Pidge, missing her helmet by a  _ hair _ and cuts right through the left turret. A spray of reflected bullets forces Keith back and he barely makes it out of the way of the explosion as the right turret goes down under Hunk’s reflected fire. 

Keith has a moment to think,  _ well, shit. No buffers on those _ . And then he’s not thinking at all. 

Hunk staggers backwards. A trail of red arcing up over his falling form. 

Its shallow.

He pulled it, no, Pidge forced him back - her bayard already crackling with intent even as terror filled her gaze. The yellow bayard drops to the ground, inactive. Hunk’s empty hands preoccupied with holding his neck together. 

Keith is  _ on _ him, swords clashing against the wicked trident end of the long stave. 

Pidge drops her assault as soon as Keith’s blades clang against Lance’s trident. She clasps her smaller hands over Hunk’s neck, stemming the bleeding and - a swirling parry knocks Keith’s guard wide, Lance’s arm swings back - 

\- the long blade balancing the stave slides in,  _ through _ , out, of Pidge’s shoulder. Hoists her off the ground. Lance doesn’t even look back, just, shakes a little - under the weight, under the strain, just to make sure she’s well and truly  _ stuck, _ maybe, and spins - lobbing her into Keith. 

The Black Paladin goes down with a shout, forcibly pulled from his charge in order to avoid skewering his teammate on his outstretched blades. It’s awkward, but he manages to catch her. Another fight, any other set of opponents, and that would be about the end of it. 

One is down, possibly dead, at least dying; bleeding out from the cut across his throat. The other too small to match either in stamina, the blood she’s losing with that through and through hole enough to put her completely out. And the last, barely wounded, hardly winded, but with one teammate in his arms and the other completely at any’s mercy. He should be down. Demoralized, out gunned, at the least distracted.

Keith’s strong though. 

Trained and fast and  _ angry. _

He’s already back up on his knees when it happens. He feels the blood, an odd sense of _ wet _ beneath his armor, before anything else. 

It should feel hot, he thinks. But he’s just. Cold. 

There’s a noise like thunder, close, far too close, and then time catches back up with him. 

_ Son of bitch. He  _ shot _ me. _

He goes to clasp his injured shoulder and nearly screams.  _ Twice _ .  _ He shot me twi- _

He actually sees the third shot enter his thigh. 

Watches it buckle beneath him in a sort of haze. 

Pidge tilts, starts to fall towards the ground. His arms are - he can barely keep a grasp on his swords. 

_ Move. _

_ Move! _

_ Move move move - come on, damn you, m- _

He can’t get up.

The barrel of the gun, compact and fat with a circular magazine and a wide barrel thats so fucking  _ redredredred. _

The glow washes over his face and-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So idk what this is or what it belongs to. It just sort of happened. If I find a home for it I’ll link it back through here eventually.   
> In the meanwhile, I’ll just caveat and say that if this had been 1v1, Lance vs Keith, I don’t think even this Lance could take Keith down.   
> But a melee is a dangerous thing for a variety of reasons, first and foremost in that it splits up everyone’s concentration. In this instance, Keith brought two glaring weaknesses into the fight with him; they just happen to be named Pidge and Hunk.

**Author's Note:**

> Taking prompts - feel free to put 'em in the comments below.


End file.
